


Magic is Just Another Word for Fate

by Redbone135



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 60,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24274255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbone135/pseuds/Redbone135
Summary: Enchanted Forest AU. Bae tells his father about the princess he met out by the pasture today. Rumple doesn't believe him... but maybe he should. What starts out as a promising love for young Baelfire creates a series of choices that Bae must make to help him cheat fate and find his way back to his princess.
Relationships: Baelfire | Neal Cassidy/Emma Swan
Comments: 47
Kudos: 38





	1. The Golden Coin

“Is magic, like, a family thing?” Bae blurted out over dinner with his father, taking another piece of bread out of the basket and dunking it into his second bowl of soup. He was eating them out of house and home, ever since he’d hit his teenage years, but his father never complained. Rumple was just glad to see his boy happy and healthy; just knowing he wasn’t off dying on a battlefield somewhere was good enough for him. “Like, if you have it, could I also be magical?”

His father chuckled, “Magic isn’t so straightforward, son. Anything could happen. But I wasn’t born with my powers, I doubt you were, either. Why?”

“Well,” Bae said, cleaning out the rest of his bowl with the stale bread and talking around a mouthful of food, “I think I might have done some today. On accident.”

“Really? And what did you do? Steal a loaf of bread out from under a soldier's nose? Come home with a few more sheep than you started with? You don’t need magic for that son, you’re just clever, is all.”

Bae blushed, losing his courage as he began to clear the table, throwing dishes into the wash-bucket by the doorway of the cottage and sinking down onto the floor to scrub at them. “No, nothing like that. It was probably nothing.”

His father furrowed his brow. It wasn’t like Bae to shy away from any topic. Certainly not one he brought up. “Then it also probably wasn’t magic.”

Bae nodded, continuing to wash. 

“What did you do today, son, that was so magical?” his father pushed.

“I… I think I seduced a princess.”

Rumple howled with laughter. Not the facetious giggle he saved for those who came seeking The Dark One. Not the soft little chuckle that showed equal amounts of disapproval and pride in his son’s sometimes less than carefully thought out antics. No, he howled that deep, belly laugh that was more of a roar, the one that he saved for only his best moments with his son. 

“It’s not funny,” Bae mumbled, before letting out a laugh of his own. It was a little funny, now that he heard it out loud. 

“Did Tamara come visit you again out in the pasture?”

Bae shook his head. Of course not. Rumple had never been a fan of the girl, and while Bae would never speak ill of her, even he wouldn’t have referred to her as a princess. 

“Wendy Darling, then?” Rumple worried. “She does seem to fancy you every time we run into her family at the market. It’s a stretch, but I’m sure we could put together some sort of brideprice her father would approve of-”

“No, she… I’d never met her before. She was lost. I helped her find the path back to the city.”

“You know, Bae, it’s not magic just because a girl likes you? Sometimes, that happens all on it’s own.”

And Bae knew that. So he didn’t press the issue any further with his father. But he was willing to bet money it was magic. Because Bae was still too young to understand that there were sometimes bigger things than magic: things like fate. 

*

He had seen her approaching quietly out of the corner of his eye, fresh parchment paper and a stick of charcoal in his lap as he sketched the sheep dog pup that his father had gotten for him a couple months ago, now growing into a real dog as it ran circles around the edge of the flock. It was unusual to see someone on his father’s property, but not unheard of. Once word had gotten out of The Dark One’s magic, strangers with courage would pay the occasional visit to plead for assistance in desperate matters. They usually left disappointed.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as she plunged her hand into his bag, left forgotten by the fence post, that held his lunch. She was dressed like a peasant, but too clean to actually be one. It reminded him of Wendy and her brothers when they snuck out to visit the boys in the village. 

He should have yelled, but he didn’t want to startle the sheep. At least that’s what he told himself.

Instead, he waited till he was sure she wasn’t watching, climbing quickly over the edge of the fence and waiting patiently against the tree behind her. He should have said something then, but he enjoyed watching the way she rifled through his things with abandon, her blonde hair falling out from under the hood of her cloak and cascading over her shoulder like sunshine falling over the mountains in the early morning. 

She let her hands fall on the half a loaf of bread, shoving it into her pocket before righting herself and realizing he wasn’t out in the field. Quickly she turned, a startled gasp escaping her lips, as she saw him leaning against the tree.

“You know, if you were hungry,” he offered, stepping forward with a smirk, “You could have just asked. I’d be happy to share.”

Her cheeks flushed red, brilliant blue eyes wide in panic, she wasn't as old as he had originally thought. Probably his age, possibly a year or two younger. 

“Cat got your tongue?” he asked, stepping forward and snatching the bag out of her reach, digging through it to unpack the rest of his lunch, sitting down in the grass and holding out a slice of cheese towards her. “Here, it’ll go with the bread you took.”

She continued to stand, frozen for a moment, before taking off her cloak and spreading it on the ground next to him like a blanket. Slowly she lowered herself, carefully arranging her skirts to cover her ankles as she leaned on her hip, looking over at the rest of the food in front of him, and picking up an apple to munch on. 

He raised an eyebrow at the audacity, “My name’s Baelfire. Yours?”

“You don't recognize me, do you?” she asked, and her voice sounded like music. Bae had never heard someone speak with as much dignity and grace, not even the Darlings who owned half of the nearest town and made sure to provide some of the best schooling for their children. And yet there was an edge underneath the light lilt, as if she didn't have much patience for words. 

“No. Should I?” he asked, offering her the piece of cheese again, and this time she took it, taking a delicate bite before shoving the rest in her mouth, overjoyed enough to pull the loaf of bread back out of her cloak pocket and tear off a chunk with her teeth. 

“My name is Emma,” she offered, pausing so that he could get a good look at her face. And he liked the way she was looking at him, really he did, but he felt a little disappointed that he couldn’t offer her whatever reaction she was expecting. 

“Well, Emma, what brings you to my neck of the woods?” he said, reaching into her lap for the chunk of bread and taking his own large bite out of it before offering it back to her. “And without a lunch, no less.”

“I got lost,” she whispered.

“Can I help point you in the right direction?”

“Can it wait until after lunch?”

He smiled, knowing he was being foolish. His father had always warned him, had tried his hardest to imprint just one meaningful lesson, never trust a pretty stranger. But Bae was a sucker for blondes. And thieves.

They finished their lunch, Bae fully expecting her to go on her way as soon as she had finished with what little he had to offer her, but instead she had run off after the sheep dog, laughing and tripping over her skirts as she frolicked with the animals. He had shown her how to tap the crook to direct the sheep, tried not to stumble over his two left feet as she pulled him in for a waltz across the field, collapsing in a heap of giggles together as the sheep dog nipped at his heels.

Finally, as the sun began to set in the distance she turned to him with a sad smile. “I need to get home.”

“I thought you were lost.”

“Can you point me towards the city, then?”

He took her by the shoulders, spinning her around to face south and then pointing over her shoulder. “You’ve wandered quite a ways. It’ll take you an hour or two to get back, but you should hit the main road if you just keep going that way.”

“And if not, can I come back here for more directions?” she asked, biting her lip with a rueful smile. 

“You can always come back for more directions,” he offered back with a matching grin, “Bread, though? I’m unfortunately out.”

“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” she asked, pulling her hood back up as he shook his head. 

“I will now, though, if you ever wander this way again.”

“I just might,” she said, leaning in and placing a chaste kiss on his cheek, before seeming to change her mind and pulling him into something a bit more passionate. 

He was out of breath when she finally pulled away, a smug smile on the lips he had just been kissing as she reached into her pocket and offered him a gold coin. 

“To replace the food I ate,” she said.

He tried to tell her that was way too much, a bronze coin would have been more fitting for the price of bread. Even just one gold coin could have fed him and his father for a month. But she was already too far gone, heading in the direction he had pointed her in, skirts swishing across the grass as he watched her disappear from his life as quickly as she had arrived.

*

“So, tell me about this ‘princess’ you met today,” his father said, as Bae collected the yarn from the spinning wheel wrapping it around his outstretched arms to be tied off and sold at the market later this month. 

Bae shook his head. He should have never brought it up. He was only half sure he hadn’t imagined it. If it weren’t for the gold coin sitting heavily in his pocket he would have convinced himself the whole encounter wasn’t real. 

“She stole my son’s ability to talk, now that is impressive,” his father laughed, continuing his endless cycle of spinning. Bae had tried to take up knitting a couple years ago, thinking that the Spinner and the Shepherd should have something to do with their finished product, instead of just selling it at market, but he’d been lousy at it, and even his overly supportive father had suggested that maybe it wasn’t his thing. Still, Bae missed the warm blankets and caps his mother used to knit before she’d passed. 

“She was pretty, and fun,” he offered lamely, unsure of what else to say about Emma. Too little detail and his father would keep digging, too much and he might be in trouble.

And anyway, how could he put into words the way she had made him feel when they danced across the pasture, her shoes kicked off as she laughed with joy? What could he say to his father to possibly explain how enticing he had found her attempt at thievery and her good-natured company through lunch?

“She probably won’t be back, though.”

“What makes you say that?” his dad asked, his hands coming to a halt as he cut the yarn, taking it from around Bae’s arms as he began to knot the bundle and set it aside with the others. “I know you don’t like people knowing about-”

“It’s not about your business on the side. I don’t think she even knew she was trespassing on The Dark One’s land. She was just too-”

Good for him?

His father smiled at him sympathetically, one of his gnarled hands coming to rest on Bae’s shoulder. “You’ll find your princess one day, Bae. In the meantime, get to bed. And try to behave yourself. Princess or not, you can’t afford the extra mouths to feed.”

Bae nodded, making his way to his little cot by the fire, waiting until his dad had disappeared into his room to take out the gold coin, warm from his pocket as it glittered in the firelight. 

He turned it around in his hands a couple times, tracing his finger over the royal currency stamp on one side before turning it to the other. Princess Emma’s face stamped neatly onto the back. 


	2. The Wild Princess

“You eat like a peasant with no manners,” Bae laughed as he watched her finish the food he had packed for their lunch. 

“So do you,” she shot back, snatching the waterskin from his hand and chugging down a heavy amount.

“I _am_ a peasant,” he shot back with a grin, “What’s your excuse?”

“Fine. But that doesn’t explain why you run like a girl,” she laughed, jumping to her feet and beginning the race to the woods at the edge of his father’s pastures. It was a frequent pastime of theirs. 

He jumped to his feet, scrambling to catch up with her. He always lost, but it wasn’t because he was slower, or caught off guard, or out of breath. He was all those things. But he always lost because he enjoyed watching the way her golden hair flowed in the wind, the messy tangle of skirts as she clambered across the uneven field, the smile on her face as she reminded him once again that he was no match for her.

Not that he needed reminding. There was always a little voice in the back of his head, constantly screaming that he was no match for her.

“That’s another victory for the princess,” he smiled as he reached her, offering her a mock bow and a salacious grin. “The poor shepherd just can’t keep up.”

“The shepherd and the princess,” she laughed with joy, “That sounds like a bawdy ballad the bards would sing at the bar.”

“Try saying that three times fast,” he joked, his voice cracking on the last word and causing her to break into another fit of hysterics, mimicking his changing voice back to him with a punch in the shoulder.

He ginned, catching her playfully around the waist with one arm and tickling her ribs with his free hand as she struggled and fought to get away in a fit of flailing fabrics. 

“And that,” he whispered in her ear as he finally relented enough for her to catch her breath, "is another victory for the shepherd.”

She turned and smacked him hard, “Don’t mess up my hair, I don’t want to sit to have it braided again. It’s so boring! And if I show up to another family affair covered in grass stains and dirt my mother is going to have a fit!”

He apologized, taking her hand as they began to stroll along the river, picking up flat rocks for their pockets to skip along the water later. “It must be nice to go to all those fancy parties though. I mean, I’ve never even been to the city, I can only imagine the grandeur of it all.”

“Yes, watching nobles get drunk is a real hoot,” she sighed, swinging their hands as they walked. “Pretending to care about this prince or that one, faking a laugh the same way I’ll be faking everything else with them some day.”

He caught her saucy grin out of the corner of his eye, wanted to make a joke, but didn’t quite trust himself not to take it too far. “But you can have whatever you want! Go wherever you please! I mean, you spend entire days out here with me and no one notices. If I were to give that a try we’d lose half the flock and my papa would tan my hide!”

“Yes, because you’re doing such a great job of watching them now,” she chuckled, casting a glance over her shoulder at the blurry dot on the horizon that were his sheep. Minded more these days by his dog than by Bae himself. “At least you’re free. You’re a shepherd now, but if you wanted to sail the world as a pirate or become one of Robin Hood's merry thieves, work your way through the ranks of the military, see the world, learn magic, meet the love of your life, reunite with a long lost relative -maybe a twin brother you never knew you had- you’re free to do all those things. All I will ever be is a princess. And maybe, on the worst day of my life, I’ll become queen.”

“Oh, _all_ you’ll ever be is a princess?” he joked, remembering what she had said about mussing up her hair and refraining from teasing her with more tickles, “Just a princess? Is that it?”

She laughed. 

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Bae. I’ve got a lifetime of boring stately duties, and a terrible husband my parents pick out, ahead of me. I’d rather be a shepherd. Or a shepherd's wife.”

He kissed her gently, pausing to look into those blue eyes that always washed over him like the river waters, powerful and completely inescapable. “Race you back to the fence?”

Her smile returned, pushing him out of her way with enthusiasm as she took off again, leaving him only a moment to watch her go before he was having to shift his focus once again to keep up.

They spent hours like this, days even, running wild through the woods. As if the world didn’t exist outside of these little pastures. As if their parents were the Earth and the Sky, two children of mother nature, unburdened by magic and status. No expectations or pretense, just feral and free youths, enjoying their stolen time together. 

Because stolen it was. And as the sun set, they always had to return it.

*

“Your ‘princess’ came to visit again today, did she?” Rumple asked as Neal entered their cottage, leaving his crook and his cloak by the door.

“How could you tell?” he laughed, though he knew it was obvious. He always came back from his days with Emma in a better mood, a little flushed and a lot more alive than when he headed out in the morning.

“Your shirt is untucked,” his father remarked, reaching out his hand for Neal to help him over to the comfortable chair by the fire. They both knew he didn’t need the assistance anymore. Every day Bae watched his father change just a little more from the arthritic spinner he had grown up with, to something he wasn’t sure was entirely human. His skin was taking on a greyish hue, his eyes a little too wide, his old limp seeming to disappear. He was perfectly capable of walking himself to his chair, but old habits die hard. And to be honest, Bae’s constant doting on his father was a habit neither of them wanted to kill.

After settling his father into his chair, Bae hurried to shove his shirt back into his trousers before fetching the buckets of yarn his father had been dying and carrying them outside. It was a smell he would never get used to, one he was sure Emma never had to put up with anywhere in the castle, much less her kitchen. People loved the deep yellows and rich reds his father brought to market, after they had been thoroughly washed to remove the smell. Bae preferred the darker colors, browns and blacks, that didn’t stink up the house with ammonia. They faded quicker in the sunlight, sure, but he liked that lived-in look anyway. 

“I figure I’ll stay close by tomorrow, it's about that time of year again. I’d like to have them sheered before we go to market in a few days. I was thinking of selling an ewe or two to make room for the new lambs in the spring,” Bae called into the house as he knelt over the buckets of yarn, lifting a strand with just his pinkie finger before abandoning them to sit and soak. His father had more of a process than that, but Bae was lazy, and more often than not, his way worked just as well. 

“Did you hear me, papa?” he asked, coming back inside to find his dad staring into the fire with that faraway look in his eye as if he were seeing worlds Bae couldn’t even dream of.

“Sell the ewes,” his father mumbled, “Yes, I heard. You know, Bae, you’ve been courting this girl in secret for over a year now. Do you think it might be time to start doing so, publicly?”

Bae shook his head quickly, ducking back into the kitchen to grab a snack and avoid his fathers gaze. “I can’t,” he answered tersely, like all the other times his father brought it up.

“Because she’s a princess?” his father scoffed as Bae came back into the room, pulling up a stool across from the fire and poking at the logs absentmindedly. “Yes, you keep saying that, but I’m not really sure what it means.”

“It means her father is a king,” Bae offered cheekily, though he knew his dad didn’t believe him. 

“If it’s a money issue,” his father began, “I can pull a few strings. We might not have much in the way of a traditional brideprice, but a favor from The Dark One goes a long way.”

Bae shook his head again, his voice softer as he whispered, “I can’t marry her.”

“You know, it kills me that I have to ask this, son, but she’s not already married, is she?”

Bae couldn’t summon the voice to lie to his father, but he also didn’t have the courage to tell him the truth, instead letting the room fill with his shame. Because Emma wasn’t married. Yet. But she would be some day and Bae had little intention of letting a gold ring and some pompous prince stand in his way. It wasn’t as if he had gone out and seduced another man’s wife, if anything Emma was being stolen from him, but he knew also that as long as she wanted him, he would be there for her. Husband or not. 

And all of that was too complicated to explain to his father.

“Son,” his dad whispered, reaching out across the hearth to squeeze Bae’s knee. 

“Not everyone finds true love on the first try like you and mom did! Not everyone gets their happily ever after so easily!” he shouted, pulling away from the disapproval in his father’s eyes. 

“Marriage is a commitment!” his father argued back, his voice a higher pitch than Bae was comfortable with, that thin, wavering edge that hinted at The Dark One just below the surface. “To steal a woman away from her husband - from her child - it’s villainous! A man willing to do that is no better than the drunken pirates down at the tavern, with no regard for the families they destroy with their selfish wants! I won’t have it in my house!”

“Then it’s a good thing it’s not happening in your house!” He yelled, toppling the stool as he stood and stormed outside, kicking the buckets of dying wool over in anger, the liquid seeping into the mud, it’s smell just as foul as the anger he felt.

It wasn’t his fault he’d fallen in love with a princess. 

*

“I like the haircut,” Emma laughed, running a hand over his new, short hair, laughing as he nipped at her neck. “Did your dad mistake you for a sheep and sheer you too?”

Bae laughed into the soft skin under her jaw. “You could see how he was confused, I was starting to look like one.”

She smiled, letting a small moan escape her lips before swatting him away, “Watch your teeth. There are only so many ways I can keep hiding your mistakes from my mother.”

“What if you didn’t?” he asked, sitting up and smiling down at her, laying on his cloak as if it were the most comfortable bed in the world. Her blonde hair haloing out around her, her own cloak blanketing her shoulders like angel wings. He loved Emma. But some days he felt like falling in love with a princess was that same as falling for an angel. Too perfect to be real and entirely unsustainable. “What if you told her about me?”

“Good idea!” she said, closing her eyes to feel the warmth of the sun on her face. “If you’re trying to die. Otherwise, not such a bright idea.”

“I’m serious. Your parents have the most beautiful love story this kingdom has ever heard. They’re known for being the champions of love and light. What if you told them about me, asked for their blessing?”

She scoffed. “My parents have the kind of love story only a prince and a princess can afford. You really think it would have worked out, if my dad wasn’t a king? If my mom didn’t have a rightful claim to Regina’s throne? If it was all about their love, why are they still fighting a war over Regina’s land?”

Bae’s heart fell. “But true love-”

“Can break curses. But, unfortunately, it’s not grounds for marrying below your station.”

“So what does that mean for us?”

“Who cares?” she sighed, rolling onto her side to play with the laces on his shirt, her blue eyes sad as she tried her best to pretend she wasn’t just as upset as he was. “We’ve talked about this, Bae. This is the kind of thing that only works if you don’t think too hard about it.”

And normally he was very good at that, not thinking too hard about things. Normally when her lips were on his, her hands tangled in his hair, he didn’t think too hard about much of anything. But not today.

“I love you,” he whispered, pulling her against him. “Fate wouldn’t have brought us together if there wasn’t a reason.”

“I love you too,” she whispered. “But fate didn’t bring us together. Coincidence did.”

“Is coincidence the reason I can’t win a single race, too?” he laughed, trying to make light of the heaviness he felt in his heart.

“No, that’s just cause you’re slow and I’m better than you,” she chuckled. “Race you to the river?”

And so they clambered after one another laughing as the sunshine melted away their insecurities. Emma could believe this was all just one big coincidence, that was fine.

Bae knew better. He knew that whatever you wanted to call it, fate or magic or something else entirely, he had met Emma for a reason. He just didn’t know what it was yet.


	3. The Silly Game

Bae watched as Emma scrambled up the tree, a mess of skirts and blonde curls swinging from branch to branch as she tried to climb higher, bouncing from bough to bough so enthusiastically he worried they might snap and then he’d never be able to get her back down. Instead of a princess stuck in a tower, he would have a princess stuck in an old oak tree, guarded by sheep instead of dragons. 

“You coming, or are you afraid of heights?” she taunted, shaking the branch she was holding onto, a rain of loose leaves falling around him. 

Sometimes he loved her so very much that he truly was at a loss for words. That never happened, he was always quick with a joke and he talked his father’s ear off, but with Emma, sometimes he was left breathless by the overwhelming want he felt. 

“It’s okay,” she laughed, “You can stay down there. Coward!”

Clearly, she didn’t feel the same way.

He chuckled, reaching for the nearest branch and swinging himself as high as he could, not nearly as quickly or as nimbly as she had climbed, less than gracefully hooking his legs over the next branch to keep from falling backwards. 

“That all you got?” she teased, pulling herself up higher into the canopy, disappearing into the twisted branches. 

With great effort, and a lot of heavy breathing, Bae managed to pull himself higher, a few more branches until he could just see the hem of her skirts, hanging delicately over a branch above. She had her back to the trunk of the tree, her feet dangling over a parallel branch, with all the comfort of someone reclining in a stuffed armchair. 

Only a few more branches, and a couple scrapes on the palms of his hand which were going to sting like a bitch tomorrow, and he was situating himself on another branch, an arm’s reach below her, but still within sight. 

“I hope you can swim better than you can climb,” she teased with a grin. “The river is going to be warm enough in a few weeks and I wouldn’t mind diving for shells.”

“I still think it’s a bad idea, venturing that close to the main road. The swimming hole isn’t far from traffic, we could be seen. I think it’s best to stick with the parts of the river we know.”

“Why, are you embarrassed to be seen with me, Baelfire?” she laughed, throwing him a sideways glance as she slid down her branch, allowing it to run parallel to her spine. Between the copious amounts of golden tresses and the many layers of the skirts she borrowed from the kitchen maids to come visit him, she looked as if she were floating in thin air. Held aloft as if by magic and surrounded by verdant canopies of the tree above her, Bae would have given her anything she asked for. Could have almost accused her of casting a spell, to so thoroughly capture his heart like that.

“Yes, I’d be terribly upset if anyone found out I was consorting with a princess, my good name would be ruined,” he snorted, pulling an apple out of his pocket and taking a bite before tossing it up to her. 

She caught it effortlessly, sinking her teeth in and then pausing thoughtfully as she chewed. “I have a question.”

He raised his eyebrows, indicating she should go on as she tossed the apple back, letting him take the last few bites before flinging the core to the ground. 

“Well, you said ‘consorting with a princess’. I’m assuming you mean ‘consort’, as in, to spend time with. And not ‘consort’, as in, a partner in a torrid love affair.”

“Yes,” he assured her.

“That wasn’t my question. That was my assumption.”

“Oh, okay, then ask your question.”

“Why, after two years of me sneaking out to visit my little shepherd boy, has he never tried to become my consort? And I do mean that in the torrid love affair kind of way.”

Baelfire almost choked, looking up at those sparkling blue eyes that loved to watch him squirm, feeling a rush of heat to his face.

The truth was he had tried, far more than was really appropriate. He was careful, like his father had always warned him to be, but there was no arguing that what they had was strictly not platonic. Bae had done his best to be the best consort that certain physical limitations on their relationship would allow him to be. It hurt his feelings a little, that she would say he hadn’t been doing his best. 

“Emma,” he said, sadly meeting her unwavering gaze, “I’ve taken as much as I can.”

She scoffed. “And yet I’m left with a lot.”

“I’m sorry. But you said it yourself, I can’t marry you.”

“Who is talking about marriage? Lots of people at court take lovers. If I'm going to be forced into a marriage of politics some day, do my wifely duties for my family and my husband, it feels only fair I should have something for myself.”

“Am I that something?” he laughed, before a sobering thought occurred to him. “We can’t. Your husband would know.”

She laughed, “You’re such a country boy, Bae. There are plenty of ways to explain away a lack of blood.”

Good to know, that felt like important information for him to file away for later. 

“Besides,” she began, swinging her feet back over the branch so that she was sitting up and looking down at him, “That’s in the future. But you’re here now.”

He smiled, standing, albeit a bit wobbly, on his own tree branch, pressing his lips against hers as he slid his hand under her skirt.

She swatted him away. “Just because I’ve given you permission doesn’t mean you can just go for it. Where’s the romance? I want to be courted!”

“You? This was your idea!” he exclaimed, beginning his climb back down the tree. “What about me? All you do is tease me! Maybe I’d like to be courted!”

And so it became their little game over the next few months. Two teenagers on the verge of their futures, hiding their fears in humor, playfully pulling each other close and then pushing the other away just as quickly. Almost as exciting to the two of them as the act itself. 

So Bae courted her as best he knew how, collecting a bouquet of wildflowers on his walk to the fields one morning, offering it to her with his best grin and a mock bow. 

She smiled, bringing them to her face to inhale the intoxicating scent. There was perfume at the palace, cut flowers from her mother’s garden, but nothing that smelled as much like freedom as that bouquet of wildflowers from her shepherd. 

“Bae, they’re beautiful,” she whispered in a rare moment of seriousness, wrapping her arms around his neck in gratitude. “Thank you.”

He nodded acknowledgement, picking one of the flowers out and tucking it behind her ear, tracing his lips gently across her cheek. Overwhelmed by the sentiment, she pulled him to her, hands tugging at his shirt as she kissed him in earnest.

“Woah,” he said, pulling away, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Her eyes grew wide in confusion, softening back to her playful self when she realized he was only teasing. “Letting you ravish me.”

“Gods Em, I’m not a piece of meat. Where are my flowers, huh?” he laughed, as she smacked him in the shoulder. 

The next time she came to visit she wore that periwinkle blue dress that she knew he loved, making sure to let her hands linger just a little too long when she hugged him hello. She spent the whole afternoon, letting her eyes drift seductively over him, brushing against him just so as they sat next to each other sharing their lunch, fingertips grazing his thigh as she reached across him for one of the pastries she had stolen from the castle kitchen. And he bit his lip and shook his head, because he knew exactly what she was doing, but eventually he couldn’t take it anymore, kissing her with passion as he climbed onto her lap, his free hand pushing her skirts up around her hips.

“Bae, please,” she scoffed, shoving him off her with a grin, “I’m a respectable lady!”

He shook his head ruefully, as she teased him by tossing strands of grass at him. He would remember that.

The next time he brought a bottle of wine. It had taken him a month to save up the money, pinching pocket change here and there when his father wasn’t paying attention. It still probably wasn’t as good as the wine she was used to back at the castle, but she laughed with glee as he popped the cork, passing the bottle back and forth for lack of glasses to drink from. 

Between the two of them they had finished the bottle in under an hour, neither one familiar with the effects of alcohol. He had found it hard not to stumble as they raced across his father's fields, loved the way she hiccuped when she laughed at him, her hands always there, ready to steady him when he tripped.

On one such time, with her leaning in close, the smell of sweet wine still hanging on her breath, he pulled her into a kiss, lifting her off the ground as she wrapped her legs around his waist, letting the kiss last long enough that he was sure he had finally won. Slowly he put her down, dragging her to the ground with him, pausing to admire her smile as he brushed her hair away from her face for another kiss.

“You’re a scoundrel, Baelfire, you know that,” she whispered jokingly, “Trying to get me drunk. No better than the men I meet at court.”

And that had hurt a little. 

But he masked it with a joke, putting distance between the two of them quickly as he pouted, “I’m just as drunk. One might say you’re taking advantage of me!”

“Yeah?” she said, leaning in to bite at his ear, “Do you feel taken advantage of?”

“Yeah!” he said, trying to mix the right amount of frustration and humor into his voice, it was hard when his head felt so fuzzy - though he wasn’t sure if that was the wine or the lack of blood - “I feel like you’re going to need to try harder if you want any more attention from this scoundrel!”

And try harder she did.

Bae hadn’t expected her to play so dirty, but he should have, knowing how competitive Emma was and that she was by and large the more confident of the pair. 

Her next visit was late in the summer. It was sweltering hot, the kind of day that made lazy men from the hardest of workers. And so they had gone to the swimming hole as they usually did.

Bae stripped to just his underclothes, the way he had always done since he was a boy, swimming with his friends. He had always teased Emma, about the way she hiked up her skirts, wading only to where the water couldn’t reach them. Eventually he had convinced her to drop them and swim with him, but always in the layers of stolen frocks. Sometime he worried the weight would drag her down and he would have to fish her out of the river and drag her back to shore, but she always seemed to keep afloat, too competitive to admit he was the better swimmer. 

But not today. Today, he watched, jaw hanging agape as she stripped down to the simple white shift under the dresses, wading into the water with a confident smile, her hair pinned in a crown of braids atop her head to keep it from getting tangled in the river. 

“Coming in? The water’s nice,” she called with a smirk. Bae watched, mesmerized as the water soaked the shift, causing it to cling tightly to her skin, transparency seeping into the fabric as she moved deeper and deeper into the water. 

“I know what you’re doing,” he accused, following hesitantly into the river as she reached out and splashed him, the cold water refreshing against sweat-soaked skin. 

“What am I doing?” she giggled, not waiting for an answer as she slipped underneath the water, swimming upstream like a bright beacon of light under the dark waters. 

And not for the first time Bae wondered if this was magic. If she wasn’t real, just a trick of his mind. Maybe he was dreaming, trapped in a sleeping curse, the world around him chaos while he slept through dreams of his princess. Well, if that were true, he never wanted to wake up. 

He followed her through the water, splashing and laughing as he tried to catch her, cradling her in his arms when he did, careful to keep his gaze only above the water.

“You’re trying really hard not to look down,” she laughed, pressing against him as he tread water to keep them both afloat. 

“If I do, you’re going to hit me. Or call me a scoundrel again.”

“Yeah, probably,” she grinned, wiggling a little in his arms, tempting him to give in. “But you know you want to.”

And he did. And she hit him. 

And it wasn’t fair, but he loved her so much he was willing to keep playing.

“This is never going to end, is it?” he asked as they lay out in the pasture, letting the sun dry their clothes before they dressed again, his sheep wandering lazily around them. “We’re just going to keep going back and forth like this until one of us dies.”

“Or one of us wins,” she added, turning her head to meet his eyes, the white of her shift glowing in the sunlight, so bright it almost hurt to look at her. 

“My money is on one of us dying first.”

“Please, the shepherd and the princess, I think we all know who will cave first.”

“Not the shepherd, he’s got more common sense than you give him credit for.”

She rolled onto her side, tracing circles across his chest with a teasing grin, “Not to mention the poor little shepherd probably wouldn’t know what to do with his crook, even if the lamb was begging for it.”

He laughed off her attempts, pulling her against his side with a soft sigh. “I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with that metaphor. But maybe if the lamb would listen to the shepherd for once he’d have her home by now.”

“Home? To his bed?”

“I’m not playing this game.”

“No, you’re just losing this game,” she laughed, that musical sound that melted his heart and his will to resist. “Just give up. Let me win. Then it can all be over.”

He shook his head. “It’s never going to be over, Em, because you’re too proud to admit you love me, and I’m too stubborn to let you win.”

*

Bae had actually gotten into a lot of trouble with his father over the bottle of wine, he’d done his best to hide his intoxication, but the hangover the next morning had given him away. 

Rumple hadn’t been kind about it either, speaking just a little too loudly, opening all the curtains in their cottage at an ungodly hour, as he kicked the leg of his son’s cot to jostle him awake. 

“You’re playing with fire, Bae,” he warned, as his son rubbed sleep from his eyes and winced at the pain in his head. “You two are going to get caught.”

And that was the most his father had said about his ‘princess’ in almost a year. Bae knew Rumple no longer approved, Rumple knew Bae had no intention of stopping the affair, and so they went about their lives as always, with the one little sour spot in the middle of their relationship. It hurt, finally having something in his life he couldn’t share with his father. And he really wanted to, because Emma made him so happy, and he always wanted to share that happiness with his father, but neither man would bend to the will of the other and so they had just silently agreed not to talk about it.

Now, stumbling home, spots of water seeping through his clothes where the sun had not finished drying him completely, he wondered if his dad would have anything to say. He wasn’t supposed to be off swimming while he was watching his flock. Certainly not with Emma.

“Hot day?” his dad asked as Bae sat his things down, the smell of fresh baked bread carrying out of the kitchen and making Bae’s stomach growl. The tired ache of treading water always left him starving. 

Bae offered a noncommittal grunt in answer, giving his father a hug hello before leaning down to peek into the oven at the little rolls of dough rising like clouds in the sky. 

“Tamara stopped by today looking for you,” his father offered. “She’s a sweet girl, Bae.”

“No, she isn’t. You’ve never liked her,” Bae corrected, still watching the buns in the oven with a watering mouth. 

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” Rumple offered. “It’s getting to be that time, when you start to think about these things. I could give you a piece of land, build you another cottage so you no longer have to sleep on a cot at your father’s hearth. You could use a wife to care for your home, while you’re out in the pasture all day. You could do worse than Tamara.”

“I could do better, too,” he mumbled sourly, finally standing and taking out the dishes they would need for supper. “I like our life here, papa. I don’t want my own hearth. I don’t want my own wife.”

His father flinched at those words, and sure, Bae probably should have chosen them a little more carefully, but they rung true all the same. 

And so the two of them did what the two of them had always done best, they changed the subject, ignoring the deep resentment from both sides, as they chatted on about their day and the village gossip that Rumple had picked up from Tamara’s visit. They laughed, and they joked, and they pretended there wasn’t this one very big thing driving a wedge between the two of them.

But it was still there, in the way that Rumple pointedly avoided all mentions of his son’s future, a topic that he had always enjoyed talking about. It was still there in the way Bae stubbornly wrapped the blankets around his shoulders on the cot in front of his father’s fireplace, refusing to admit he was getting too big for his childish sleeping arrangements. Neither man was sure how much longer this could continue, but now, with Bae still being just seventeen, it didn’t feel like the time to push the argument further.

And so they both went to bed, Rumple wishing his son might wake up with a lick of sense, Bae wishing he might wake up beside Emma. 

It was dark outside when Bae was woken by a light tapping against the window. He panicked, thinking of the predators that could be trying to steal their sheep, the villagers who wished his father harm trying to hurt their family.

But the tapping came again quickly, calming his nerves as he saw it was only a small pebble being tossed against the glass. 

Grabbing his cloak from by the door he stepped outside, looking around across the yard until his eyes found the outline of the interloper. And it wasn’t hard to spot her. She glowed like an angel in the night - this most certainly was a dream.

“Emma, what are you doing here?” he whispered, stepping forward to take her shoulders in his hands. 

He had never before seen her in her princess attire, and though even now it was only a nightgown, his breath caught in his throat at the reality of it all. Silk hung down around her frame, light and white, like mist over the valley in the mornings, lace adoring her throat and chest, a delicate but firm reminder of her royal blood. He loved his wild princess, running through the fields in stolen kitchen maid clothes. But he lusted after this vision in front of him, a baser need, wanting to bring her down to his level, rutting in the dirt like animals. 

He shook his head to clear it of those thoughts, looking into her face for signs of distress. She never came to visit at night. And she never came to his house. Was something wrong?

“I’m here for you,” she whispered back, placing a gentle kiss on his cheek before meeting his eyes. “I’m here, courting you.”

He sighed. Technically it was his turn. She should have waited for him to make another move before pulling a stunt like this, and he had to admit, as fun as their silly game was, this was taking it just a little too far.

“Em, my father is inside,” he whispered, “I love you, I love our game, but this isn’t funny.”

“I’m not playing a game, and I’m not trying to be funny,” she said, taking both his hands in hers. “This is me, dropping my pride and admitting that I love you. This is me, telling you that I love how stubborn you are, but I want our game to end. You win. I seduced you.”

He looked around, making sure the lights were still off in his father’s room, before pulling her gently by the hand to the storage shed around back where they could have a small amount of privacy. 


	4. The Happy Life

Bae was sick with worry.

He hadn’t seen Emma in a month. Four weeks. Thirty days. Too long. 

What had started as just a nagging feeling had escalated quickly enough to something he couldn’t hide from his father, even if he wanted to. He was sick almost every morning, couldn’t keep food down for the life of him, was even beginning to lose weight.

What if she had been caught, sneaking back into the palace in the early morning? How much trouble would she have been in because of him? What if they had assigned a guard to watch the wayward princess, to make sure she couldn’t get back to his pastures?

What if someone had found his clothes? She had left her ruined nightgown with him, the rips and blood too damning of evidence to carry back with her, and instead traveled home in what were clearly a man’s clothes. She was probably smart enough to burn them, he hoped, but he wondered if they hadn’t been found before she had a chance. What if her parents knew, and again, had assigned a guard to keep her away from the man their daughter was in love with?

What if he had made a mistake, left a bruise or a scratch somewhere on her porcelain white skin? What if she had done everything right, sneaking back in, burning the change of clothes, and it was his mistake that had gotten them found out? She had hidden marks made with love before, but it was still a possibility that they hadn’t been that lucky this time. And once again his mind came back to that same conclusion. They had assigned a guard to watch her closely and keep her away from him. 

He was never going to see her again, and worst of all, he would never truly know why.

There was one other scenario, one that made him vomit at the sheer thought, and so he did his best to avoid those thoughts, losing his lunch whenever he failed. That was the worst option, because if it were true, it would be all his fault. Because it had been his responsibility, and he had failed her in that. Like most of the boys in the village, he had of course received that talk from his father - careful advice in family planning, and when planning failed, advice to prevent happy accidents. And Bae had always assumed he wouldn’t need it, had assumed that his first time would be with his wife. But he had needed it, and when that time came, he had forgotten, because it was hard to remember when a princess was whispering your name. 

Rumple, to his credit, knew better than to ask too many questions. Normally keen to poke at the edges of his son’s secrets, tease the truth from Baelfire, now he kept a safe distance. He offered comfort in the form of soft hugs goodbye, before Bae headed out to the pastures, a consoling pat on the shoulder now and then when he found Bae being sick in the bushes. But he didn’t ask, and Bae didn’t offer.

And then one day, the worrying was over, and she was back and cheerful as ever, skipping across the fields in her stolen dress.

He swept her into his arms, swinging her around in a circle as he cried, never wanting to put her down. 

“Emma, are you okay?” he whispered through his soft sobs, kissing her neck as she struggled to be put down. 

“Yeah,” she said, concern in her voice, “I’m fine. Are you?”

He nodded, releasing her to look at him curiously as he did his best to get himself together. “Where were you?”

“Right,” she said quickly, as if her long absence hadn’t even occurred to her. “We went abroad. Mother wanted me to meet a potential suitor. I came as soon as I got back.”

He could tell she was trying to make a much smaller deal out of this than it actually was, and so he didn’t push the issue. She was here now, and he had always known this day would come, so he shouldn’t feel as hurt by the word ‘suitor’ as he did. 

Still, he had learned a valuable lesson. He would be more careful next time.

Except for he wasn’t.

*

As summer faded into fall, winter following shortly after, the two spent less time running and swimming, instead opting to keep each other warm in stolen moments, wrapped in his cloak under the oak trees at the edge of the fields. Some days he would bring his parchment and sketch the smile that was already etched into his heart. Others, she would bring a book from the castle and they would read to each other; stories of adventures that both were envious of. A dashing pirate and his beautiful bride. A daring general and the maiden he fought to rescue. A shape-shifting sorcerer and the princess he kept locked away in his tower. 

And like children they would play pretend, picking up sticks as swords and fighting each other like the characters on the pages, climbing tree branches like the rigging of a ship and pretending to spot some far away land. Occasionally Bae would pick her up over his shoulder, carrying her away like a dragon, dropping her in a fit of giggles as she pulled him down with her, enjoying the way she squeaked and shrieked as he would growl and grumble.

“Dragons only take maiden princesses,” she reminded him one day, laying curled in the crook of his arm, as he picked leaves out of her hair with the sort of absentminded affection that denoted comfort. “You’re a terrible dragon.”

“Yeah, it’s my choice in princess that makes me terrible,” he laughed, “Not the lack of wings, and claws, and generally all other dragon features.”

Her eyes turned sadly away for a moment, looking out across the field at the sun as it began to gently touch the tips of the mountains. 

“I didn’t know it could be like this,” she whispered, and he thought, for just a moment, he saw a tear run down her cheek. He reached to wipe it away, but she caught his hand, entangling his fingers in hers as she looked into his eyes. “I feel like when the older women talk about men and marriage back home, it’s always a warning. A chore. A threat. A princess grins and bares her duties, she doesn’t complain because there is so much more to life than love. But they’re wrong. I didn’t understand why my parents' story was so special, not until now. It seems a shame to have to settle for less, now that I've loved you. Is it the same, here?”

He shook his head, sad for the girl who had everything except what really counted. 

“No. Marriage is a happy thing. My father has always told me how wonderful it would be, to meet a girl and fall in love. My friends, they joke and jest, until one by one they are becoming husbands and fathers, and suddenly it’s not so funny any more. I’d marry you any day, Emma, if you’d only run away with me. We could be happy, like this, always.”

But he knew she wouldn’t be. It was one thing to say she wanted his life, it was another to give up the comforts of hers to live in the dirt with him. He would give her all he had, but he knew it would never be enough. 

“I can’t run away,” she sighed. “It’d be nice. But think of the repercussions. We wouldn’t get far. And even if we did, we’d throw this whole country into chaos. My parents have been dangling my hand in marriage as a reward for the prince with the largest army for as long as I can remember. They’re getting desperate, Bae. I imagine they’ll be accepting a proposal any day now. They can’t keep Regina at bay on their own much longer.”

“The Evil Queen sure is persistent, isn’t she?” he laughed, trying to ignore the rest of her statement. 

She shrugged into his shoulder, “Land is worth a lot. And my father has good land.”

That didn’t feel right to Bae. He couldn’t imagine waging war for over seventeen years all for a patch of land. He couldn’t imagine waging war with anyone for anything less than love. 

“Will this end?” he asked nervously, “Once you’re married?”

She laughed, it was a cold and callous noise and he didn’t like it much compared to the music he normally heard in her voice. 

“I don’t see why it should.”

“My father says a marriage is a commitment, not one to be taken lightly,” Bae offered.

“And it will be. Between my husband’s army and my father’s kingdom. I play no role in that commitment,” she said, and then added thoughtfully, “I suppose I will play a role. They’ll want an heir.”

He stroked her hair, watching as the sun began to set on the horizon. He didn’t have words for that sentiment. 

Where Emma was having to cope with the idea of two husbands, one in law and the other in heart, Bae had made the decision to never marry. If he couldn’t have Emma, then what was the point? It broke his heart to think he was denying his father a grandchild when he knew how badly the old spinner had dreamed of that day, but Bae would never be pressured into anything he didn’t want. He couldn’t imagine having parents that so blatantly disregarded his wishes, knowing that while his father often disagreed with him, he also always respected him. 

“You know I’ve never really liked the idea of motherhood,” she offered, sitting up and gathering her things back into her bag. “I’ve always hated the idea of something growing inside me, like a parasite, scratching and clawing its way out. But I don’t think I’d mind much, if it was yours. Let me pretend that it is. Let me continue to visit you, to love you like I always have, and then I’ll know, when I’m with my husband, that there will always be a piece of you with me.”

Bae didn’t much like that idea, that there might one day be a child in this world that was his to love but not to raise, but the idea seemed to provide her a great amount of comfort and so he wouldn’t take that from her. Instead he walked her back to the main road, kissing her goodbye for as long as he could afford before the night patrol would be headed out and they ran the risk of being caught. 

“I love you,” he assured her, “From the moment I met you until well after I die, I will always love you.”

“Don’t be so serious, Bae,” she teased, “It doesn’t suit you.”

*

“You know,” his father said as Bae stumbled into the well-lit cottage, the heat from the fire instantly thawing his frozen fingertips, “You arrive home later and later every night. Consistency is the key to concealing secrets. I don’t approve of what you’re doing, but I do hope you’ll be smart about it. Just because your father is The Dark One doesn’t mean he’ll protect you when her husband comes to kick your teeth in. And that should be any day now.”

Bae laughed, sitting down next to the fire to warm his hands while his father continued his spinning in the chair behind him. He was always in too good of a mood after seeing Emma to be upset by his father’s warnings. “When did you know you were in love with mom?”

“I don’t remember,” his father muttered, his brogue thick with emotion, and so Bae didn’t push it further. “That was so long ago.”

“I know you hate me for what I’m doing,” Bae offered, “But I need you to trust me, trust that I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t right. She needs me. And I love her.”

His father shook his head. “She needs you now, while you’re young and exciting. Give it time, Bae.”

“I have, I’ve given it years, papa. And I love her more and more each day. I’m never going to stop loving her, even if I tried.”

Rumple smiled at his optimistic son, puppy love sparkling in the boy’s eyes. Bae thought he was a man now, and Rumple was not fool enough to pretend he didn’t know why the sudden change in perspective, but every time his gaze fell on his son all he could see was the little boy whose height he would measure with notches on his walking stick. 

“You’re sweet, son, and she is going to break you like a promise.”

The two laughed, Bae looking away uncomfortably first. 

“And I don’t hate you, Baelfire,” his dad added, ceasing his spinning to tilt his son’s chin up and away from the fire, those too-large pupils seeming to shrink back into the man who had raised Bae, “I could never hate you. I just want to see you happy; that’s always been what I’ve wanted for you. I want you to be free to love your wife in public. To fill your heart with the love of your children. I think those things would make you happy, I know they brought me great joy. The first day I held you in my arms is a day I will never forget. I want you to be that happy some day.”

“I am happy, papa,” he assured his father. 

“Then I trust you,” Rumple said, turning back to his spinning, the whir of the machine a constant comfort to Bae through his childhood.

It wasn’t the life he had always imagined, but it was one that combined the best of both worlds. His days spent with Emma running wild and frenzied, his nights spent in the comfort of his father’s home - a warm fire and a whirring spindle to lull him into a peaceful calm. It was a safe and happy life, and he couldn’t imagine that another would bring him any happiness at all.

“She really is a princess, you know,” he said, smiling as his father chuckled at his goofy grin.

“I’m sure she is, son.”


	5. The Dangerous Daydream

Baelfire had always been an imaginative child. It was a side effect of growing up without siblings, growing into a job that involved very little attention to reality besides doing the occasional count to make sure he hadn’t lost any sheep. Before Emma, he had spent long hours out in the pastures imagining grand adventures that he might some day go on. When he could afford it, he would buy parchment, sketching out the sights he could only dream of in his mind’s eye, tacking them on the wall above his cot as inspiration for his dreams.

Now, he got lost in daydreams of her. 

There were the wild fantasies he shared with her whenever she visited: the two of them sailing away into the horizon, no one to stop them from being together. Nothing but the stars above them and the sea below them, a future filled with laughter and wanderlust and happiness. 

There were the sultry fantasies he shared with no one but himself: her warm breath on his neck, calling his name so loudly into the forest that the birds would fly away startled. Nothing but the trees and the river to see them sin, an afternoon filled with passion and actual lust and euphoria.

One of his favorite impossible daydreams, the one he spent quite a great deal of time on, was what it would be like to marry Emma. 

On cold evenings, when he wanted to be far away from his little cottage, he would try to imagine what the inside of the castle must look like. He’d picture Emma draped in diamonds and lace, the most perfect bride. He’d imagine tears filling his eyes as he watched her glide towards him in front of a kingdom who had been rooting for their love all along. Everyone loves an underdog, right?

On comfortable afternoons, when he was actually quite sated with his life, he would keep the fantasy more attainable. He would imagine the two of them in the town square, like his parents had stood, exchanging vows they had written themselves in simple clothes, surrounded by flowers and music. He pictured the way Emma’s veil would hang across her shoulders, how happy he would be to lift it for their first kiss as husband and wife. 

“Do you ever daydream about things like that?” he had asked her once, after sharing one of these fantasies with her. 

She shook her head, “No, silly, who has the time?”

“I do,” he pouted.

Seeing that she had hurt his feelings she sighed, “I don’t make up dreams like that, Bae, because I will just end up disappointed. Instead I think of real things. Like that time you lost the race to the fence and had to wear my headband all day. That one makes me laugh. Or the way we waltz in the field without music, I remember that every time I’m at a party and everyone is having more fun than me. And when I’m alone I think of the time, where we played hide and seek in the forest… And you found me and held me down in the tall grass and we… Do you remember that time? I don’t need to make up dreams. You are my daydream. Feel better? Or are you going to keep pouting?”

He cast her a sideways glance, “I might stop pouting in exchange for a kiss.”

She grinned, “You drive a hard bargain, shepherd, but alright.”

Later, after they had redressed and were occupying themselves with skipping stones across the river, she leaned against his shoulder a comforting weight that kept him from floating away in his giddiness. “Fine, I’ll bite.”

“You already did,” he laughed, feigning hurt as he rubbed at the little red circle she had left on his collarbone. 

“It’s a figure of speech,” she laughed. “It means I want to hear what you have to say, even though I know it will be silly.”

“I know what it means, Emma,” he said, tossing another rock and watching it skip three times to land on the opposite bank. “But when has anything I ever said been silly?”

She smiled imploringly at him, planting a kiss on his cheek before turning back to tossing her own rock across the gently moving waters. “Do you daydream about what the rest of our life would be like, together, after the wedding?”

“No, but I could make one up,” he offered. He liked spinning stories for her, would often tell her his own version of his childhood fairy tales as she drifted to sleep in his arms underneath the afternoon sun. Emma loved to read, but she seemed to have very little talent for creating her own tales, and so when they didn’t have a book to entertain, Bae often stepped up and crafted enchanting stories, most of which featured a brave princess who went on adventures to escape the boring confines of her castle. 

“Okay, then make one up,” she encouraged with a grin, bending down to remove her shoes so that she could dangle her feet into the cold, winter waters. Bae had never had a tolerance for the river between September and March, but Emma seemed to like the chill. She also really enjoyed splashing him with the icy liquid, laughing at the way he would shriek and shrink away. 

“Okay,” he said, pulling from his stockpile of happy little daydreams and weaving pieces together into something more substantial for her, “I’d build you a little cottage on my father’s land, with my own two hands. Every stone would be a labor of love for you and we could fill it with my drawings and your books until there is no room for mundanity inside those walls. We’d be married in the spring, I think, out in the fields where we met. I’d continue to tend the sheep, but you’d come with me during the day to help. We would never have to be separated, unless of course we wanted to be. It’d be a happy life, you, me, and our marriage bed. No shame or secrets, just Baelfire and Emma, and of course the friends and family we’d surround ourselves with.”

“And the children?”

“What children?”

“Don’t you peasants have hoards of children?” She asked, her tone sour, but if Bae wasn’t mistaken, it also sounded a little envious. “Wouldn’t we?”

“Perhaps a few, if you wanted them,” he smiled. “Not hoards. I’m not sure we could handle hoards.”

And he had thought the conversation was over. Until he had kissed her goodbye, and she had leaned in very close to his ear, whispering words that made his blood run hot with wanting. 

“I’d like to request another daydream,” she said with that impish grin he loved so much, “The next time I visit, I want you to tell me what our child would be like.”

And he’d nodded and promised. Of course he could do that for her.

But it wasn’t a very hard assignment. Their son would be brave like her, their daughter would be creative like him. He imagined shaggy brown hair with golden highlights that caught your eye in the sun, hoping for eyes arctic blue as hers and not his own stormy grey ones that darkened to black with his bad moods. He had so much to tell her, and her next visit was still a week or two away, that he turned his attention to another daydream, one more private, for only himself. 

Bae imagined all the ways he could find out he was becoming a father. It was a dangerous dream, and one he felt guilty for at first, because he didn’t want to accidentally wish it into reality. 

So at first he kept the dream as realistic as possible. He imagined Princess Emma, a golden band on her finger that did not belong to him, visiting him in the fields. She could come less frequently now that she was married, but she would never stay away for more than a month at a time. He imagined the way they would lay, spread out in the grass, or possibly wrapped in his cloak along the river bank, and she would bring his hand to her stomach and whisper those life-changing words. But that dream often left him unsatisfied, because it meant he would never be able to claim the child he had sired, and so he changed it to something a bit more fanciful.

He had plenty of friends who had found out about their paternity from angry fathers, dragging them from their home - weddings where the groom’s most prominent feature was a busted lip or a bruised eye. And so Bae worked some of that into his next daydream, thinking about what it might be like to be dragged away from his father’s home and forced to wed Emma at the palace. Of course, it would be everything he had ever dreamed of, so the word forced was a bit of a stretch, but he liked to imagine the sinking feeling in his stomach as the king and queen told him that they would not have their grandchild be born a bastard, even if he was a shepherd. 

But that dream also didn’t have the right amount of love between him and Emma, and so he dared to make it even more of a fantasy. She would come to him in the middle of the night, with tears in her eyes and a baby in her belly, and beg him to run away with her. To take her as far away from their restrictive lives as possible. And he would. They would pack their things in a hurry and start a new life in the furthest kingdom they could reach before Emma had the child. They would raise their family together, lacking in money but not in love, and he would not only get to be there for his child’s first steps, but she would be the one who had chosen him. That was the perfect daydream.

Yes, Baelfire thought of almost every conceivable way he could find out he was going to be a father. He picked and chose the best part of each daydream, saving them all in one master story to savor when he was alone and missing his love. He thought of every possible way.

Except one.

*

“Papa, sit down,” Bae encouraged, shoving his father towards the bench around their little table. “I can handle making dinner.”

So could his father, these days, who was looking less human, but far healthier, than he ever had before. Still, Bae was a young man, and it was his job to take care of his aging father, dark magic be damned. 

“I’m not an invalid, boy,” his father joked, heading into the living room and picking up the bundles of wool that still needed to be carded before it was spun. He lowered himself onto the bench at the table, awaiting the food that Bae was finishing in the kitchen, and beginning to stretch the wool across the little hooked teeth of the carder. 

“No, you’re just old,” Bae yelled back, picking at the fresh dinner rolls, still entirely too hot from the oven, and dropping them quickly into the bread basket. Fortunately his fingers were calloused enough not to blister from the heat, but it still stung as he grabbed another to bring to the basket. “Baking is a young man’s game.”

“Baking and seducing princesses, huh?” his father laughed, beginning to drag an empty carder across the full one in his lap.

Bae had a quick response ready to fire back, but was cut off by a rather forceful banging at the door.

“Who is it this late at night?” his father asked, leaning around the little wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the cottage. “Were you expecting someone?”

Bae shook his head with worry, setting down the bread basket and picking up his father’s walking stick from its place in the corner. He didn’t need it, his father’s magic had grown to proportions even Bae was starting to be scared of, but the familiar weight of the wood in his hand brought him a little extra comfort. 

The banging continued. 

“Bae,” his father warned, his voice a low growl, “Did you steal something again?”

No. He hadn’t this time. 

“I’ll get it,” he offered instead, feeling his father’s protective hand clamp over his arm. 

“No, you’ll stay here.”

And so he watched from around the little wall in the kitchen as his father pried open the door with confidence, two armed soldiers - not the village sheriff, but actual royal guards - stood waiting at the door. 

“Good evening, gentlemen,” his father crooned, “What brings you all the way out here tonight?”

“Is this the home of Baelfire, son of Rumpelstiltskin?” The first guard asked, no patience for pleasantries in his voice.

His father raised an eyebrow in question. “Baelfire?”

The soldier impatiently pushed his father out of the doorway, stepping into the little cottage and looking around. Bae gripped the walking stick tighter in his hands, his stomach knotted in fear. He hadn’t done anything. He’d been on his best behavior recently, his father’s deal-making business bringing in enough money that Bae no longer needed any other behavior. 

“Where is your son?” The second soldier asked, following his friend inside, keeping Bae’s father occupied while the first soldier began rifling through their things. 

“What would you like with him?” Rumple asked, watching just as annoyed as Bae was as their privacy was invaded. 

“He’s under arrest,” the second guard said, devoid of the normal emotion one might reserve for telling a father his son was to be incarcerated. “We have orders to take him tonight.”

Well, that wasn’t going to happen, Bae thought, inching his way to the edge of the kitchen wall so as to be less visible from the doorway.

He watched as the first soldier found his cot. Shit.

Rummaging through the bedding he pulled the ruined silk, Emma’s old nightgown, from inside the pillow case, holding it up to the second soldier who nodded in the affirmative. And just as the soldier lowered the nightgown, his eyes fell on Bae, crouching behind the kitchen wall. They both paused, frozen in recognition - the soldier recognizing his query, Bae recognizing how much trouble he was in.

“What has he done?” his father asked, still oblivious to the change in the room’s atmosphere.

“He knows what he’s done,” the second soldier grumbled as the first lunged towards the kitchen, reaching for Bae who was just a tad faster, knocking over a shelf of glass jars as he fled the grasp of the soldier. Normally, Bae talked his way out of most trouble. He had a good head for stories and a rather charming smile, and oftentimes he could skate away with just a warning. He was smart enough to know this wasn’t one of those times.

Adrenaline propelling him where logic could not, he sprinted down the little hallway as the soldier righted himself among shards of glass, pushing open the door to his father’s bedroom and scrambling out of the little window. His foot caught on the ledge, causing him to lose his balance, but he was standing again quickly and sprinting across the yard to the gate in the fence where he would have his shot at freedom.

He couldn’t hear the sounds of pursuit behind him and so he thought maybe he had a chance if he just kept running. Running towards the gate. Towards the pastures. Towards the woods. Running to freedom.

Instead he ran directly into the grasp of two more soldiers, waiting patiently for him at the gate. 

“I didn’t do anything wrong, “ Bae protested, struggling to fight his way free of the two men holding him, forcing his hands behind his back to be bound with a length of rope. “Let me go, I didn’t do anything!”

But it was no use. He had. And the silent soldiers were above arguing that fact with him.

“Wait,” he heard his father call, running around the corner of the house, the two soldiers from inside following him. “Stop! Where are you taking him?”

“He’s to be executed in the city square at dawn,” one of the soldiers mumbled.

Executed? Shit! No, that wasn’t going to work for Bae. He renewed his strength in his struggle, managing to catch one soldier in the stomach with his elbow, only to be subdued with the help of the original two. 

“Executed,” his father whispered and Bae could see the wheels turning, desperation sinking across the spinner’s face, The Dark One’s glittery hue beginning to take over. “What has he done that warrants execution? At best a thief deserves to have his hand taken. Whatever he has stolen, we can replace it. We can pay for it.”

“What he has stolen can’t be returned,” said one of the soldiers, who now had Bae by the back of the neck and was forcing him down onto his knees so that he could be tied up. “And he will pay for it, with his life.”

“He forced himself upon the princess,” one of the other guards clarified. “The Queen wants an example made of him.”

“I didn't!” Bae protested. “I love her! She loves me!”

“Princess?” his father whispered, stepping forward, pupils large, voice taking on that pitch that Bae knew, but the soldiers did not, was the first warning of a dangerous storm taking over. “Bae? When you said ‘princess’... you meant Princess.”

“Yeah,” Bae whispered, the ropes cinching tightly around his wrists as he was pulled back to his feet with tears in his eyes and shoved in the direction of the main road. It was over. He had lost. “I didn’t hurt her. I would never hurt her.”

“Shut up,” one of the soldiers hissed, giving him another shove away from his father and the home he had loved his entire life. He would never see it again. “Save your sorry excuses for the executioner.”

“Please,” Bae whispered, defeated, “Just let me speak to Emma. Just let me see her one last time. She’ll tell you, I didn’t hurt her! I did something wrong, sure, and I’m willing to die for that. But I didn’t hurt her!”

“The bastard you’ve left behind begs to differ,” the soldier muttered.

Bae fell to his knees, much to the annoyance of the soldiers.

A bastard? A baby?

They kicked and shoved at him, trying to pull him to his feet, but he was too dumbfounded to be much more than dead weight. 

“Alright, well, I’ve had enough of this,” he heard his father’s voice, thin and cold as ice, carrying across the field, a snap of his fingers and the soldiers froze where they stood, one with his foot lifted, only a few inches from Bae’s face, another with his fingers tangled in Bae’s curls.

What the hell?

Bae caught his breath, scrambling away from the mess of statue-like men towards the open arms of his father. 

“Papa, please, you have to believe me,” he sobbed into his father’s chest, ignoring the swirling static of raw magic he had always hated. Right now his father was too much of a comfort for Bae to be put off by the sparks of dark magic flying around him. 

“Didn’t I tell you?” his father said sadly, pulling his son tightly to his chest. “You’ve made a mess, Bae, a real mess.”

“I know,” he whispered, “I know.”

“I can clean it up, but you aren’t going to like it. If you had only listened to me, years ago. But now we’re here, and we’ve only one way out. And you aren’t going to like it.”

Bae could barely breathe. Words like execution still swirling around his head. And he loved Emma, he really did, but he loved his own neck - particularly the way it was firmly attached to his head - as well. “Please help me. Use your magic. Help me.”

“I love you Bae,” his father whispered, “I can only hope you will still love me after this.”

And with a snap of The Dark One’s fingers, and a cloud of purple smoke, Bae and his father were no longer standing in the fields outside their home, but a room with marble floors and stained glass windows. It would have been beautiful if Bae wasn’t too busy drying his eyes and trying to keep his shame from forcing him to empty his stomach.


	6. The Bastard Child

The King and Queen looked startled at the new appearances in their throne room. Bae watched as the Queen, Emma’s mother he realized, collapsed backwards into her throne, clutching at her heart while the King’s hand fell protectively on his sword. 

“Don’t look so alarmed, you had to be expecting this - coming after The Dark One’s son in the middle of the night,” his father crooned, bowing so low his nose could have touched the floor before righting himself with a joyous hop. “Or did my boy forget to mention that detail?”

Bae swayed nervously on his feet. He hadn’t forgotten to mention that detail. He had purposely avoided it. He loved Emma no matter where she came from, and she had claimed the same, but that was an easier promise to make when your father was an old spinner and not a demon of darkness. 

“Your son?” the Queen whispered, her face darkening as the news, which she had undoubtedly thought was bad, got even worse.

“Yes, my boy. Father of your grandchild. We’re family now, dearie, and I don’t think you’ve been very welcoming of us.”

“You’re a monster,” growled the Queen, “As is your son.”

“Let’s drop the act,” his father giggled, “We both know this little story you’re weaving is so full of holes it couldn’t keep a dragon warm in the winter. My son and your daughter have undoubtedly conceived a child - but it wasn’t in malice, only stupidity. What’s your plan? Kill my boy, publicly acknowledge the trouble he’s caused for your family? I don’t think all those princes you have lined up to marry your daughter would like that very much. It’s going to be hard to get an army, when no one wants to marry your pregnant daughter.”

Bae swallowed hard, looking back and forth between the adults in the room, too nervous and startled to interject. He would marry her. If that was an option, he would gladly marry her. But he wasn’t quite brave enough to say it out loud.

“Or perhaps you were thinking of killing him privately?” Rumple continued, taking a giddy step towards the royals who shrank back away from him. “But what does that solve? You haven't made a point, you haven't gotten rid of that unwanted baby, and you haven’t done yourself any favors in the eyes of one of the most destructively magical creatures to walk this earth. That last one would be me, if that wasn’t clear.”

“We will not bow to your threats,” The Queen continued, “Your son has committed a crime against our daughter, we want him punished.”

“Is that what Emma said?” Bae managed to choke out, three sets of angry eyes turning to glare at him. Well, two, actually. For the first time he noticed the King didn’t seem to be able to look at Bae. He seemed to be just as ashamed as Bae felt. And so he made his case to the King. “I love your daughter. I never meant to interfere with her life here. I know I don’t deserve a princess. Hell, I don’t deserve a woman like Emma regardless of her birth. But I think we both know, I didn’t hurt her. But you will, if you kill me.”

He had thought it was convincing, but the King only turned away.

“Your son will be hanged a rapist and a thief,” the Queen said, her voice soft and cold. “He will not escape punishment just because his father is-”

She couldn’t finish, shuddering as she looked away from Bae and The Dark One. 

“I’m not suggesting he escape his punishment,” Rumple laughed, “What kind of father would I be, were I not to discipline my child when he’s been naughty… I’m just suggesting a better punishment. One that works for all of us. I’ve come to offer you the deal of a lifetime.”

“We will not make a deal with the devil,” the King said, having finally found his voice, but still not the strength to look at Bae. 

“I think you will!” Rumple trilled, twirling his hand as he spun around to face his cowering son, beckoning him forward as he slung an arm protectively around his shoulder. “Because my deals are far too good to resist.”

That much was true, Bae knew.

“Why are you here?” the Queen snapped, “Why not take your son and run, we all know you’re capable of it!”

He father nodded, bouncing from side to side as if weighing the pros and cons of this new possibility for a moment. An act, Bae knew, all part of The Dark One’s flair for the dramatic. “I could, but I think we know you wouldn’t stop chasing us. We’ve seen how tenacious your family can be when it comes to settling their debts, haven’t we Princess Snow?”

“What happened to Daniel wasn't my fault, my loyalty was to my father, to my family,” The Queen roared, standing to advance on Rumple.

“I was referring to your stepmother,” his father laughed, barley flinching as the King was forced to restrain his wife from slapping The Dark One, an action she would surely regret. “But if the shoe fits!”

“What are you here to offer us?” the King asked, ignoring the protests of his wife. 

“I propose a better punishment, one where we all get our way. Banishment. Send my son away. Lick your wounds and tend to your daughter in private, before getting on with your life as planned. I get my son, and you get a chance to win back your daughter's trust. You’ll tell her you gave him the choice. You’ll tell her he was offered a place in the royal guard as the acknowledged father of her child, or banishment. And that when he thought of putting his life on the line in battle, he chose banishment.”

“She’ll never believe you,” Bae whispered. “She’ll know I’m no coward. That I would never run from her and our child.”

“She’ll believe you,” Rumple whispered with a roll of his eyes, snatching the scarf from around his son’s throat and waving a hand over it. “Give her this. Whatever lie you tell her about how it came into your possession, she’ll believe it, guaranteed. I still think my lie is better, of course, but you’re free to tell her any story that explains why she’s better off with you than with the man she has been begging to take her away from this life for almost three years now. It’s going to have to be a hell of a story.”

Bae scrambled to get his scarf back as the Queen took it gently into her hands, the cloth now sparkling with magic. But his father raised his hand and Bae was frozen in place, unable to reach the fabric only inches from his fingertips. 

“And what about the baby?” The King asked.

“We’ll take the baby with us,” Bae offered from his place, frozen and reaching for the scarf. “You won’t have to worry about it.”

“Like hell you will,” the Queen roared, “You think we want a bastard son, with claim to our throne, being raised by The Dark One, to come back and take vengeance on us?”

“Ah, so you do admit, your actions would be worthy of vengeance,” Rumple laughed, gesturing for his son to stay silent. “No, you’re right. You can’t have the child being raised by my son. But you’re a creative lot, I’m sure you’ll think of something. Give it away, drown it in a well, use it as a bargaining tool to end a pointless war with a barren monarch. Hell, if you marry your daughter fast enough you might even be able to pass it off as legitimate. Do we have a deal?”

“I’m told your deals are a tricky thing,” The Queen whispered, “That you have to watch the wording very carefully. How can we be sure this is one we can trust?”

“Would you like it in writing, dearie,” Rumple laughed, twirling his hand so that a scroll appeared, clearing his throat dramatically before reading from the parchment. “You will let my son leave this castle, not only with his life but free of all future pursuit, and in exchange he will never set foot on your land again.”

“There’s the loophole,” the King whispered, “Just because he can’t set foot on our land doesn’t mean he won’t-”

Rumple cut him off with a little cough, and then continued, “He will never set foot on your land again - not in body or spirit. For those of you still looking a little lost, that means no letters, no messengers, no carrier pigeons. You have my word, were he to try and enter the country after tonight, he will be met with an invisible wall - as real to him as the baby he sired is to you.”

“Where’s the loophole?” The Queen asked, as Bae’s mind raced through the same question. There had to be one. His father wouldn’t really do this to him, there had to be a loophole. 

“If I told you, then that wouldn’t be any fun, now would it,” his father laughed. “But I’ll give you a hint - you’re going to have to watch your daughter very carefully. The deal, the curse, whatever you want to call it, will be on your territory. You keep your princess on your land, and he’ll never see her again. Do we have a deal?”

Bae watched in horror as the Queen reached out, shaking his father’s hand.

And then in a puff of smoke, they were gone again.

*

Bae woke up to sunlight streaming in through stone windows, his father standing over him in the dusty little decrepit room. 

“Get up, son, we’ve a lot of work to do.”

“Where are we?” he asked, sitting up and noting the set of footprints leading in and out of the room in the caked on dirt and grime of the place. They had arrived late last night, and too distraught with all of the very heavy things Bae had learned about his future in the span of an hour, he had passed out on the nearest soft surface. Which appeared to be a bed, moth-eaten sheets and suspicious stains making his skin crawl as he got up and began to dress himself.

“Our new home,” his father grumbled, leading the way out of the little room into an even dirtier hallway. He must have noticed the look on Bae’s face as they passed splintered door frames and sidestepped spots where the floor had simply crumbled away. “Well, it needs some work, but it could be worse.”

“No, really,” Bae said, a soft chuckle to his voice, “Where are we?”

“You think I’m joking?” his father said, spinning around and facing his son with anger across his face. But not his Dark One anger, just the anger of a father who was learning all too suddenly that his boy had turned into a man overnight. “We’re banished. This castle has been empty for a while now, and it’s well within Regina’s land, so we won’t be breaking our deal. Together, we’ll turn it into the home we deserve.”

“But Emma-”

“You’re banished.”

“My child-”

“You’re banished.”

“Papa,” Bae sighed, “I can’t accept this. I have to find a way.”

“Give it time,” his father mumbled, pushing open a wooden door and leading Bae into a room that had been at least partly cleaned already. The floors were swept, the cobwebs torn down from the ceiling corners. His father had even brought in some furniture. Bae recognized the dining table from their little cottage and then benches that had surrounded it. His father’s spinning wheel was sitting in the corner. His heart hurt, to think he could never go back to that little cottage. His sheep, his dog, his home. His princess. “In the meantime, you have much to learn. You’re not a child anymore, Bae, that much is clear, and I can’t protect you from the world forever. So there is much you will have to learn to do for yourself. Sit down.”

And so Bae did, watching as a candle appeared on the table in front of him, white wax encasing a fresh wick, never before touched by fire.

“Light the candle,” his father instructed, leaning on the edge of the table.

“I don’t have a match,” Bae said, looking around the room for a tin of fire starting supplies. 

“I don’t want you to use a match.”

Bae shook his head, “I don’t have any magic. And I don’t want any. This is how you protect yourself, it won’t be how I do it. My fate lies far away from magic.”

“Magic is just another word for fate, son. You can make your own, or you can wait for someone with more magic to come along and make it for you, like you did last night. Now light the candle.”

“No, I have to find a way back to Emma. It was fate that brought us together. Not magic. You said everything happens by design!”

“Yes, son, and sometimes we have to be the designer of our own fates. Light. The. Candle.”

With a heavy sigh, Bae reached out, passing his hand over the wick and glaring up at his father when nothing happened. Just more proof that he was nothing special. He hated magic for what it had turned his father into. He hated it, also, because it never seemed to like him much. 

“Again, but actually try this time.”

Bae reached out again, pressing his fingers to the wick and trying to think warm thoughts. He conjured an image of fire in his mind, of what a candle should look like when lit, adding details like the trails of smoke and melting wax to make his vision just a little more real, the same way he did with his drawings.

Still nothing.

Rumple pulled out the bench across from him, waving his own hand over the candle, bringing it to life with barley a blink. Bae watched, unimpressed, as his dad dragged his hand back across the flame, extinguishing it.

“Don’t think about the fire, Bae, think about the heat. When I do it, I think about the anger I felt when the king’s guard tried to take you to fight in the war. The anger that propelled me towards magic in the first place. It is white hot anger, and it is more than enough to light a candle.”

Bae drew on his own anger, his ribs still sore from where the soldiers had kicked him the night before. They had accused him of things too terrible to think about. They had ripped him away from his home and his love without so much as a chance to say goodbye. He thought of how frightened he had been, and how little they had cared. He let all that resentment ferment into rage as he passed his hand across the candle, watching the wick sputter and flicker with the tiniest hint of a flame.

“Good,” his father said, “You’ll just need to keep practicing.”

But Bae didn’t like the way that made him feel. Powerful, yes, but bitter too. No wonder magic had soured his father’s soul. Bae had spent the last three years letting love run through him, and oh, how that had changed him for the better. He couldn’t imagine the nightmare his father had been facing, years of hatred doing the exact opposite.

So, fine. Bae was going to learn magic. Because he would need it to get back to Emma. 

But he didn’t have to do it his father’s way.

_Don’t think about the fire, think about the heat._

So he thought of the heat.

He thought of the way sweat had run down his back in the sweltering summer sun while he and Emma had let passion boil over into one another. He thought of the sting of her nails digging into his skin, the roll of his hips against hers, the way those four little words had set off fireworks behind his eyes. _I love you, Bae._

And the candle burst into flame, almost as bright and tall as his father’s attempt had been. Smug, he sat back, glaring at his father across the table.

If he was to write his own fate, he would write it his way.

In love, not in anger.


	7. The Invisible Wall

Bea held his sword aloft, taking careful steps backwards as his opponent slashed, first a forward stroke, and then backwards when he missed his target on the first swing. Another careful step backwards. Bae shifted his weight as he turned to his side, bringing the sword into his left hand to slide sideways, avoiding another forward slash of his opponent’s steel blade. He had learned a lot of different fighting techniques from the Queen’s garrison over the last year, but avoidance was still his favorite.

“Bae, fight him or I’ll send another,” his father called, the laughter of the soldiers standing around to watch the fight causing his opponent to chuckle as well. Most were his age, and he knew when they had first met him they had looked down on the little shepherd boy who couldn’t twirl a stick without smacking himself in the eye. Not anymore.

“You’re going to anyway,” he reminded his father, getting low so that his weight was on his back foot, bending to the side to avoid the sweep of his opponent’s blade, waiting for it to finish passing above his head before twisting even further to the side and bringing his own sword up into the leather plates covering his opponent's ribs. The soldier, startled, jumped backwards, pausing for a moment before correcting his footing and leaning forward with another blow. But it was enough time for Bae to have gained the upper hand. He parried the blow, the sound of metal on metal causing the watching soldiers to cheer as Bae pushed forward, using his superior weight to force the other man backwards. 

“My turn?” asked the soldier standing next to his father, this man much bigger than Bae and a few years older. A more formidable opponent.

“Yes,” Rumple said with a grin, “Otherwise your friend might just lose his head.”

The man stepped forward and Bae shook his head in disappointment. It would have been smarter to attack from behind. But he really shouldn’t complain about the obvious advantage the burly man had just given him. 

Bae broke his sword away from the first soldier, lunging quickly to his side to face the approaching new target, his blade raised protectively in front of his face. He parried the first blow from the burly attacker, turning quickly to catch the sword of the smaller soldier on his backswing. He took a careful step backwards as the burly man swung at him again, both soldiers keeping close together. It would have been smarter for them to split his focus, this was almost too easy. He continued creeping backward, forcing the shorter soldier to move out in a wide arc, trying to cage him in. That was better, quick on his feet he dodged another two blows, his sword still held protectively in front of him. He watched as the bigger man lunged to his left, lashing out and forcing Bae to turn to parry the blow, the shorter soldier striking from behind as Bae ducked to just barely miss the grazing of his opponent’s steel on the back of his neck. 

“I’m getting bored, anyone else want a go?” his father called from the sidelines and Bae cursed silently under his breath. It wasn’t a question. That was the way these things went, the point wasn’t for Bae to win, it was to push him as hard and as quickly as possible until he conceded. So Rumple would add another opponent, ten other opponents, as many as it took to push his son to his breaking point. It shouldn’t have worked, but Bae was more stubborn than he was lazy, and so it did every time.

Still facing the bigger soldier, Bae brought his blade to parry another blow, having to spin quickly to the side to dodge the first soldier, movement out of the corner of his eye letting him know a third opponent had entered the ring of onlookers. 

This time the three men were spread out, leaving Bae in the center of a smaller circle, three blades facing him as he turned his head ever so slightly to note all of their positions, careful to point his feet at the space between his new attacker and the first, smallest soldier. Sensing his weak spot, he lunged forward at the smaller man, their blades clashing as Bae pushed him backwards, breaking the circle and forcing the other two opponents into a run to keep up with the shorter man’s hurried retreat. The newest opponent lashed out with his blade, lifting it well above his head before bringing it down hard and fast on the space formerly occupied by Bae’s skull. Holy shit. That was close.

The three attackers fell back into a line, the way they were trained to fight in battle, three very sharp swords pointing at him, a crowd of cheering men backing up to give them their space. 

The two opponents, not previously occupied by trying to bash Bae’s brains out, lunged forward, sword tips grazing the leather of his armor. Trying his best to take a step backwards, and losing his footing on uneven ground, Bae stumbled onto his ass, looking up at the men above him. He had two choices. Let one of them tap him with their sword, and the whole thing would start again, back on his feet with just one, brand new opponent. Or win, and end his training for today.

As the three men advanced with giddy laughter, Bae breathing like air was a precious commodity, he knew which route he was going to take.

“Alright, I’ve had about enough of that,” he mumbled, subconsciously mimicking his father’s lilt.

He reached out his hand in front of him, palm pushing outward, thinking of the way the world had always seemed to stop spinning when he had looked in Emma’s eyes. He thought of how days with her had dragged on in the most lovely languid of ways, time standing still as he held her hand along the riverbanks.

And his opponents froze, still as statues. 

There was a roar from the crowd as Bae got to his feet, waved his hand again, and the three men stumbled forward out of their frozen stances. 

“Good fight,” Bae assured them, sliding his sword back into it’s leather sheath on his hip, ignoring the way the crowd rushed forward to clap him on his shoulder as he pushed past them to his father who stood smiling, holding a pocket watch in his hand.

“It only took you two hours,” Rumple laughed, “I do hope when you’re off fighting real battles one day, your opponents get tired as quickly as you do.”

“Let’s see you do better, old man,” Bae taunted. “I’ll see you for supper?”

“Sure thing, son,” his father responded as Bae picked up his satchel full of his things for the afternoon, waving goodbye to the soldiers as he exited their little camp. “Try not to get any princesses pregnant today!”

Bae offered a one-fingered salute to his father over his shoulder, heading off towards the hill with the best view of the forest.

*

He had spent almost a month marking the border, first with sticks stuck upwards into the ground like pikes, and then with heavy stones that made an almost scenic view of the whole thing. It had wavered a little, when he’d first begun testing his limits, but as soon as Regina had stopped her war, agreeing to The Charming Family’s peace treaty a few months ago, the wall had remained static. Somewhere, in a room Bae was not important enough to be in, someone had drawn a line across a map, and that line was where his wall stood now.

Slowly, he began to unpack his satchel, setting the little book full of parchment paper on one rock and balancing one of the spell books he’d stolen from his father’s collection on the other. Thoughtfully, he flipped through the pages to the one he had dogeared, Bae’s notes from all his test runs written in the margin. He still struggled with raw magic, bending it to his will was a challenge and it only seemed to work when he was mad or tired. He hated that - he really desperately wanted magic to come from a good place, did his best to focus on his most positive memories when he was working with it, but something about magic always seemed to gravitate towards his darker side. His weaker side. It was like the force was attracted to those parts of him, desperately trying to bring them to the front of Bae’s attention.

And there was anger there. There was fear. There was the aching weariness of wanting. But if he spent forever focusing on those things he would lose the very motivation for using magic in the first place. 

So he stepped back, shrugging off his woolen cloak and rolling up his sleeves, mirroring the gestures written on the paper, watching as one of his letters to Emma - of which he had an endless supply - lifted gently from the book of parchments, folding itself gracefully into a little bird. He had tried other shapes at first - he had thought a dragon would be the most fitting given the games they used to play - but so far the shape of the letter didn’t seem to have much effect on the spell’s success.

He took a deep breath, thinking of her, of his child, and pushed his hands forward, the paper bird soaring upwards in the air, flapping its folded wings around his head as he directed it gently towards the invisible wall marked in stones. He had added an underlying protection spell this time, meant to strengthen armor, and he was hoping this new addition to his magic would help him be more successful. 

It was now or never. With a flick of his wrist he sent the letter soaring across the line, watching with joy as it broke through, flapping a couple feet forward down the hill, before crumbling into dust like the last fifty-two letters he had tried to send. Well, fifty-fourth time's the charm. 

He waited on the hill, reading his book and eating his lunch until he saw the little boy in a green tunic with a dagger strapped to his hip. The youngest of the Merry Men, Roland made weekly trips out to the hill in exchange for a book of adventure stories. Baelfire liked the little boy, would have given him the stories anyway if he had thought to ask, but instead the boy had agreed to a deal. The first deal sealed with magic that Bae had ever made. He hoped he wasn’t becoming too much like his father, though it was hard to tell some days.

“Hey little man!” Bae called, closing the book he had been reading and offering it to Roland who inspected it carefully. “Got anything good for me today?”

Roland shook his head, sliding the book into his back pocket. “Forest is pretty quiet. Haven’t had a lot of travelers pass through now that the war is over.”

Bae nodded. That wasn’t good enough. If Roland didn’t offer him something better he was defaulting on the deal. The book would crumple in his hands. So Bae helped him out, prodding information out of him.

“Any news of the princess?”

He’d been waiting for months to hear of her engagement. Had thought for sure it would happen immediately. But instead news had reached him that the princess had fallen ill. She’d been confined to her chambers for a while, all plans of arranged marriages put on hold. 

And then, a few months ago when Regina and Snow - who Bae refused to refer to as a queen with every fiber of his being - had worked out their peace treaty, Emma had reappeared in the public eye, still weak and pale, but making a speedy recovery. 

“She seems to be getting better, I hear,” Roland said with a shrug. “They say she’s even going to appear at the next ball.”

“Anything else new at the castle?”

A baby, perhaps? Around four months old, if Bae had done his math right.

“Not that I can think of,” Roland said, stroking the cover of the book he was holding.

“Come on man, you’ve got to give me something here,” Baelfire pleaded. “Anything going on that’s new in the forest?”

“Yeah,” Roland said, “but you never want to hear about the forest.”

“I want you to have that book, it’s a good book. And unfortunately, you have to tell me something new or it’ll go up in a cloud of dust. Nobody wants that. So tell me, what’s new with you?”

“We got a new Merry Man last week. She’s actually a Merry Woman. I like her.”

Bae nodded, clapping the boy on the shoulder, saying their goodbyes before each turned to wander their own way - both home to see their fathers.

*

“How was your day of trying to undo my magic?” Rumple asked, setting the plate of mutton and fresh vegetables down next to Bae’s feet as his son continued to run a paintbrush over the walls that he had finished plastering last week. Slowly, he was getting the castle into a livable shape, having finished his room in the first three months here, his father’s in the following three, and the dining hall - which had been an absolute nightmare - only a few weeks ago. They hadn’t yet decided what this room was going to be, but it didn’t matter, fixing up the inside of their castle was something Bae could do after the sun had gone down, besides sit and wallow in his own thoughts.

It would have been nice if his dad would help him, but hey, you can’t always get what you want.

“Not well. But I’m optimistic about tomorrow,” Bae laughed.

“You’re wasting your time. You’re never getting past that wall, Bae. Think of all the things you could be doing instead. Like sanding the floorboards in the west wing. Or replacing the broken windows in the attic. This place could be a castle if you weren’t so busy trying to get back to a castle that doesn’t want you.”

“Emma wants me. My child wants me,” Bae grunted, bending down and dipping his paintbrush before going back to his work. With any luck he’d have the final coat of paint finished before he went to bed tonight - ready to start dragging in carpet and furniture tomorrow. 

“Emma thinks you’ve abandoned her. And that child would be lucky to live long enough to take its first breath in this world. I’m not trying to be cruel, Bae. But it’s time you moved on.”

“I disagree,” he said, matter-of-fact-ly, turning to face his father who stood admiring Bae’s work with his hands on his hips. “And anyway, I’ve got a type. Where am I going to find another princess?”

They laughed.

“Build the castle first, son, then we’ll fill it with princesses.”

“You know,” Bae called as his father excited the room. “You could help! It would go a lot faster around here with an extra set of hands.”

“I could,” his father smiled, poking his head back into the little room, “But I had a home that I built all on my own. It was a nice home. And I had to leave it all because my boy couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bae scoffed, dipping the brush in paint again before continuing to brush it against the wall. “It’s been a year, are you ever going to let that go?”

“Are you?” His father asked, leaving again as Bae grumbled under his breath, wiping sweat from his brow.

Fair point.


	8. The New Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear with me on this one guys... I promise I'm not about to go off the deep end with my ships...

“Oh, good, Bae, you’re here!” his father exclaimed as Bae stepped into the dining hall and set his bag down by the door. There were two people in the room. His dad never had visitors. And they were both staring at him, his father with giddiness and the woman to his left with a look of terror that she was trying very hard to hide. She wasn’t doing the best of jobs.

“Who is this?” Bae asked, forgetting his manners and outright staring at the woman in gold. He didn’t like the way this one felt, didn’t like the swirling hum of magic that filled the room, an extra layer to the tense atmosphere that made Bae want to run. 

“This is Belle!” his father exclaimed, pushing her forward with a hand in the center of her back, she bent low to Bae with a graceful curtsy, the hands holding the fabric of her skirt shaking so badly that her whole dress seems to flutter around her. “She’s coming to live with us.”

“Why?” Bae asked skeptically, offering her his hand in greeting but still not quite sure about this whole ‘Belle’ situation.

“You said you could use an extra set of hands around here. Someone to help you with the cooking and cleaning. The laundry… not the shopping… she might run away if we let her do the shopping…”

Bae turned to the woman, still standing stock still between the two of them. “Why are you here?”

“The Dark One was in need of a caretaker,” she whispered, her voice deeper than Bae had expected, thick like honey and as intoxicating as mead. 

“And you volunteered?”

“In a way, yes,” she nodded, looking nervously between him and his father with a question on her lips, unsure what she was supposed to say. 

Gods damn it, dad. 

“You made a deal with her,” he glared at his father. “You made a deal to keep her prisoner so I could have a hand with the housework instead of just helping me yourself?”

“Dearie, would you mind if I had a moment alone with my son?” Rumple asked, not waiting for an answer before snapping his fingers, the woman in gold disappearing from the room. Bae didn’t even want to ask where he had sent her.

“This is ridiculous, papa! Have you lost your ever-loving mind? You can’t go around turning people into slaves because it’s convenient to you!”

“Calm down son, she made the deal of her own free will to save her people. Very brave and noble of her, someone with more of a heart than myself might say.”

“That doesn’t mean you should have offered it!”

“You could use the company, Bae,” his father said with a sad smile, “She is, after all, a princess.”

Oh, hell no!

“You think I loved Emma because she was a princess? You think I’m that shallow?”

“I think the last one didn’t work out, let’s try a new one.”

“She’s a woman, papa, not a puppy! You can’t just buy me a new one and hope for the best!”

“Why? She’s housebroken,” his dad giggled, that Dark One laugh that Bae detested, a reminder that the man he was speaking to was only a shadow of his father. Not that he needed the reminder, his old father would have never tried to buy another person for his son’s wife.

“You’re going to send her back! I don’t want her!”

“She’s a woman, Bae, not a puppy!”

“You’re something else, you know that?” Bae hissed, turning to storm out of the room.

*

Bae was trying really hard not to bond with her. He was still resentful that his father had brought her here, ruined her life, for the sake of his. He hoped the less time he spent with her the sooner his father would grow bored with this new little scheme, sending her back to her family claiming the terms of her deal had been sated. 

But it was really hard not to take pity on her. Yes, she was whip smart and a hard worker, but there was something about her that just stirred a sad sort of compassion in his heart. Maybe it was the way she cried all through the night, Bae and his father both arguing over the best ways to shut her up - Bae suggested a more comfortable living arrangement, his father suggested sewing her mouth shut -, that made him want to offer her a small scrap of friendship. Or maybe it was the way she didn’t complain, not once, about the fact that her job was to follow him around the castle filling whatever tasks he asked of her. Bae would have complained a lot if that was his job, but she just stuck out her chin and went about her task as if she had spent her whole life doing things for herself instead of being waited on. 

“Is that the only dress you have?” he asked, watching her trip over the hem as she tried to climb up the little rickety ladder to hang the curtains he’d bought. He was supposed to be prying up the baseboards to make room for the new floors, but he was getting distracted by the way she stumbled. He might have been trying to keep his distance, but he didn’t like the idea of her falling to her death, either. 

“Your father didn’t really give me a chance to pack any bags,” she grumbled, standing on tippy-toes to drape the heavy fabric over the iron curtain rods he had just put up. 

The sight made him lightheaded with fear. He wanted to tell her to get down from there. Originally he thought the curtains should be her job, hanging fabric was women’s work, but after watching the tenacity with which she went about her chores, he was pretty sure she might be even better than he was at tearing down the baseboards. She probably wouldn’t even need any tools, just her fingernails and raw anger. 

“If you give me your measurements, I’ll pick something up for you the next time I’m at the market,” he offered, reaching out his hand to steady the ladder. 

“You’d do that for me?”

“I’ve got good taste,” he shrugged, couldn’t help but smirk at the sarcastic glace she gave his own clothing. He’d been wearing a few more leathers as of late - they were helpful in his sword fighting practice and when he made things explode with his clumsy attempts at new spells - but mostly he still dressed like he always had, in loose and messy shepherd’s clothes. “Okay, or I could buy you some fabric and you could sew your own dresses.”

“That would probably be best.”

No, best would have been her having the freedom to go buy her own clothes. Better yet, to go back to her castle and wear the gowns she surely had waiting for her. He felt guilty, every time he remembered why his father had brought her here. Trapped her here. He felt like he owed her an apology, even though he hadn’t done anything.

“Do you want to take a break?” he asked. “I’ve got something I’d like to do today, and you look like you could use the fresh air.”

“I can’t leave the castle,” she reminded him. 

“No, you can’t leave the castle  _ alone _ ,” he corrected, “But I'd be there to stop you, if you tried to make a break for it.”

“Do you think your father would allow that?”

He’d probably encourage it. 

Bea shrugged, “It was just an offer, you don’t have to take it.”

“What are we doing?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

*

Bea sat the little cake he’d made himself atop the rock border he had built overlooking Sherwood Forest. It was a sorry sight, he had never been much of a baker, but he had tried. Sticking a candle in the top, he pressed his finger against the wick and watched it jump to life with a tiny little flame. Tiny, like his child would have been.

“So you can’t walk past these rocks?” Belle asked, hopping back and forth over the stones, seeming to enjoy their little outing away from his father’s castle. He could see the idea forming in her head, knew it wouldn’t take much of a spell to pull her back to him, even if she did decide to run. 

“No,” Bae said, watching her step atop the knee-high stones and balance one foot in front of the other as she walked.

He lowered his lips to the flame, making a wish - his only wish - before blowing out the candle.

“Come get me,” she laughed, falling tripping down on the opposite side of the wall and extending her hands, open armed like she expected him to run to her. He knew if he did, his head would smack against the invisible wall, bouncing him backwards with enough force that the headache would rival even the worst hangovers he’d had. He knew this from many failed experiments with running starts. Instead he reached out his hand, as if to grab her wrist, watching her entire face shift in awe as his palm pressed flat against the air, holding him back as he leaned into the line, as real as if he were leaning on a wall made of stone and cement instead of secrets and shame. 

“Wow,” she whispered, walking forward to press her hand against his. Then with less grace than he had been expecting from a princess, he watched her climb back over the stones, sitting herself down next to the little cake with a nod. “So, you want to tell me what all this is about?”

“My child would have been a year old this month. I’m honoring them.”

“Bae,” she whispered, seeing the pain in his eyes, “I’m so sorry.”

He was too. He was sorry that in his mind he still just thought of the baby as ‘his child’ because he would never know its name. He was sorry that his pronouns always had to stay so vague, never knowing if he had a son or a daughter. He was sorry that he had to honor the child, instead of celebrate it, because as much as it pained Bae to admit it, even to himself, the baby was probably dead. 

“Don’t be, it’s my curse to bear,” he mumbled, “You’re not the only one who made a deal with The Dark One because of some misguided noble assumptions that things would be better this way.”

“He’s a monster,” she whispered softly. “I don’t know how you stand him. The two of you laughing and joking like he isn’t your captor just as much as mine.”

Bae shook his head. “There’s a good man under all that Dark One shit. Magic can warp you, I’ve felt it firsthand, but it doesn’t change who you are at your core. My papa loves me, he keeps me here to keep me safe. From myself, mostly.”

“And why did he bring me here?” she snapped.

“For me,” Bae sighed, sitting down on the rock next to her. “He thinks I’m lonely since I can’t see Emma again. I think he’s a little lonely too, he wants me to be happy again so that he can be happy with me. Every mirror I shatter, every letter I burn, every bruise I earn trying to get back to her, it breaks his heart a little more. I think he was hoping you could fix that.”

She swallowed, reaching out and setting a hand on his knee, “If that’s what he wants - I mean I’m doomed to spend the rest of my life only knowing the two of you - do you think we should give it a try?”

Bae looked at her curiously. She was pretty. A lot curvier than Emma, with darker hair and a softer smile. Honestly, she looked a lot like what he remembered of his mom. But he liked her determination, her unfailing optimism, and the kindness she always tried to show to him and his father despite both of them having truly terrible tempers at times. 

He shrugged.

She reached out, cupping his face in her hands and pulling him to her, their lips meeting lightly in the middle. It wasn’t a bad kiss… he felt her pressing harder against him as her hands slipped backwards into his hair, practically climbing into his lap. He tried to pull away, panic taking over, but she had him pressed against that damn invisible wall and he couldn’t really get away. Until suddenly she was actually in his lap, and he was standing quickly, toppling her onto the grass in front of him.

“I’m sorry Belle, Gods, I’m sorry,” he muttered, extending his hand to pull her back onto the rocks next to him, the two of them sitting in silence for a moment. “It’s just… well… was that really doing anything for you?”

She shook her head, “No, not really.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, burying his head in his hands “Me neither. I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s just that you’re not really my type. For starters, you’re way too nice to me.”

She laughed, “I was about to say the same thing.”

“So I guess we’re both masochists, then?”

“Or hopeful optimists?” she suggested, winding her fingers through his as she smiled. “Just because you’ll never find love like that again, Bae, it doesn’t mean you have to be lonely.”

He knew that. His loneliness was the penance he paid for what he had done. His father had cursed him to be separated from Emma, but he had cursed himself to be separated from all affection. It felt wrong, being happy without her. 

“I know that. But I also know there’s a loophole somewhere and I just have to find it.”

Or maybe there wasn’t. His father kept telling him to give it time. Maybe moving on was the only option left to him.

“Have you tried sending a letter?” she asked hopefully.

“Yeah, they burst into flame or crumble to dust as soon as they cross the line.”

“What about a messenger? Please tell me they don’t burst into flame?”

“No, but they forget the message. It’s like all memory of me gets wiped clean as soon as they step across the line.”

“What if you had her kidnapped and brought to you? Then she’d be crossing the line.”

“Except that’s kind of hard to do when the kidnapper forgets I exist as soon as they’re on her land. It’s a good way for me to lose a lot of money. Trust me. I have.”

“So no one on that side of the wall remembers you?”

“Not quite,” he sighed, picking up the little cake he had made for his child and splitting it in half, offering some to her. “It’s like they can remember me until I give them a message or a task. There’s a little boy I’ve made a deal with, and he can remember he’s supposed to meet me here once a week, but even though I’ve explained myself a thousand times he always seems a little fuzzy on why he’s here. It’s why I had to make a deal, instead of just taking his word. Magic pulls him back when his memory fails.”

“What about that mirror trick your father does?”

“I’ve broken ten.”

She sighed, picking a chunk from the little cake in her hand and putting it into her mouth thoughtfully. Before spitting it out and turning to stare wide-eyed at him. “Oh, Bae, this is awful.”

“I know, but I can’t give up. I love Emma so much, and I don’t want her thinking I’ve abandoned her. I don’t want her to feel trapped in that life. I took too long to find my courage last time. I won’t make that mistake again. I will fight my way back to her, and when I do, I’m never letting her go again.”

“Oh, no, that is awful, but I meant the cake. The cake is awful. Who taught you how to bake?”

He laughed, giving her shoulder a light shove with his own before trying it himself. Dear Gods, that was bad. 

“Next year, I’m making the cake,” she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder as they stared back to his father’s castle. Their prison. Their home.

“So if I’m not your type,” he asked, “What is your type?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never really had to think about it before. My father always just told me what my type was.”

Yeah, Emma had had that problem too. 

“It’s funny, I’m a prisoner to The Dark One, and this is the most free I’ve felt in years.”

“Love will do that to you,” Bae sighed. “It did with me and Emma.”

She laughed, “I’m not in love with you, Bae.”

Oh, he knew that. He also had a vague inkling of what her type might be.

*

“Where have you two been all day?” his father asked as they stumbled into the dining hall laughing, arm in arm, dinner - or even tea - nowhere to be seen. However, while his father’s voice held a reprimand, his smile was encouraging. 

“I brought her out to see the wall,” Bae answered quickly enough. 

His father rolled his eyes. 

“You didn’t tell her about Emma, did you?”

“Of course I did,” Bae said, pulling out the chair at the end of the table next to his father and helping Belle sit, situating her skirts around her nervously at the proximity to the monster she had been sharing family meals with for the last few months. “Told her about our baby, too.”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” his father said to Belle. “Next time you’d like to be tortured, just say the word and I’ll do it myself. I think a good flaying would be far less painful.”

She laughed, and Bae noticed the hint of a blush creep across her cheeks. 

“Now, what are we having for dinner?” his father asked, looking out across the empty table, “Or did you two forget that it’s your responsibility to serve the meals?”

“I’m sorry,” Belle whispered, rising to stand, but Bae held her down with one hand, waving the other over the table.

He always thought of the picnics he and Emma had shared out in the pastures. He thought of the bread she had stolen from him, the apples and cheese they had split enthusiastically while trying not to laugh or talk with their mouths full in front of the other. He thought of the wine that had tasted even better on her lips than it had from the bottle. 

And it appeared on the table. It wasn’t much, he probably could have done better if he tried harder, but it was food and it teemed with the sort of magic he didn’t mind. His father’s conjured food always had a bit of a sour taste, Bae’s had a sparkling sensation, crisp and clear and just a little intoxicating.

“Well, it’s hardly a meal,” his father said.

“It’s food, isn’t it?” Bae argued back. “Anyways, what matters is the company.”

“I suppose that’s true. Sit down, Bae, stay a while.”

“I can’t,” he hurried. “I promised the soldiers I’d have a drink with them - the ones you aren’t paying to stay and train me - before Regina pulls them all back to the castle. Just because I can’t have Emma doesn’t mean I need to be lonely.”

He smiled at Belle, offering her a small wink before turning to leave the dining hall, enjoying the uncomfortably awkward silence that filled the room as his father and his friend realized it would just be the two of them for dinner.


	9. The Overflowing Tankards

They thought he didn’t know.

And that was fine, he actually kind of preferred it that way.

Gods, did he prefer it that way.

Hey, a few drinks in and he could almost pretend that he didn’t know.

It wasn’t that he minded, really, he was glad they were both happy.

But she was his best friend. And he was his father.

And so it was easier to not think about it and just down another beer.

“Another round!” Belle shouted, much to the enjoyment of the other patrons at the bar. “No one is leaving here sober tonight!”

“Yeah!” Bae cheered, grabbing her hand and pulling her back down from the table where she was brandishing her tankard like a sword. “Let’s get real weird with it! Let’s get shirtless and talk about our childhoods!”

The crowd roared in agreement as the barmaids began refilling tankards, Belle digging in her coin purse for enough to cover the cost.

“Put your money away, no one here thinks you’re actually paying,” Bae mumbled.

“It’s your birthday, twenty is a big one! I want to!” she said, far more intoxicated than he was, spilling gold onto the table.

“Papa start paying you for the housework, now?” he asked, taking another sip, and shooting her a smug grin as she struggled to count out the correct amount of coins. 

“He might have agreed to pay for this night, if I could promise you’d have a good time,” she chuckled, finally getting the correct amount of currency and handing it to the passing barmaid, who swapped their tankards out for full ones.

“So the hookers are on you, then?” he laughed, and then seeing the confused look on her face brought a hand over hers, “Relax, Belle, I’m kidding. I could use a few coins for a buy-in at the card tables though, if you’re offering.”

“I don’t know, Bae,” she mumbled, trying hard to focus on his face as she swayed back and forth, his hand on her shoulder keeping her steady. “You lost a lot of money last time…”

“I didn’t lose it. The guy took it from me for cheating. I actually won a lot of money, I just didn't get to keep any of it…”

“What about dancing? Dancing is free and fun!” she said, grabbing his hands and pulling him after her to the crowd of lively dancers, enjoying their free drinks courtesy of The Dark One. Bae had to admit, all weirdness aside, Belle had done wonders for his father’s reputation in these parts. 

He had quickly learned that Belle liked to dance. But unlike the waltzes and other princess-like dances he had learned from Emma, she was a fan of the wild jigs more popular in the local taverns. She loved a bawdy ballad and would often belt out the lyrics at the top of her lungs, much to his embarrassment in public, much to his father’s embarrassment when it was just the three of them around the castle. 

He watched her start to tap her feet, a slow start to what he knew would soon be hopping and spinning around the dance floor, her skirts flying out around her in a circle as he did his best to keep up. He considered himself successful if he was still holding one of her hands by the end of the song. 

The song changed, just as the two of them were getting warmed up and Belle shouted out with glee. “I love this song!”

He knew she loved this song. She sang it all the time. So often if got stuck in his and his father’s head. It was called “The Guillotine” and it was about three princesses equipped with chastity belts that… well, the song title said it all. 

And so they danced as she belted out the lyrics with the bard, and Bae was a little drunk, and his father wasn’t here, and so he shouted out the lyrics with her, his face turning red at some of the raunchier lyrics as they spun and laughed. 

“Oh, do you know _The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter_?” she asked the minstrels as the song ended.

“Let’s get you home,” Bae laughed, dragging her away from the stage.

“But it’s your birthday!” she protested.

“And it’s been a wonderful one. Now let’s go home.”

“Another round!” she cheered.

And he relented.

*

“My, my,” his father chuckled as Bae carried a passed out Belle into the room, dumping her less than ceremoniously onto one of the fainting couches under the window. The sitting room, the latest addition to completed rooms in their castle, was quite cozy. They’d started taking their meals in here instead of the formal dining hall, not needing room for more than the three of them. “I swear, if I were to light a match you would both go up in flames. You reek of ale.”

Bae swayed dizzily on his feet. 

“It’s my birthday,” he informed his dad, as if he didn’t already know.

His dad shook his head, “I hope it was a good one.”

“Belle bought me a lot of drinks. She wanted ten - so that we’d have twenty combined - but I’m not sure we got there…”

“You’ve always been a lightweight,” his father laughed, brushing his son's hair away from his forehead and planting a kiss on his head. 

“Papa, I like Belle,” he whispered, resting his head on the table in front of him, feeling his father stiffen next to him.

“She is… something,” his father conceded.

“No, I really like Belle,” Bae persisted. “I’m glad she’s here.”

“Me too,” his father offered cautiously. “Though I’m not sure the two of you would make the best match…”

“No, no, no,” Bae tried to clarify, his voice sounding soft even to him as sleep began to tug at his mind with it’s beckoning fingertips. “I mean for you. I think she’s good for you. And if you two want to… whatever it is the two of you are doing… I think that’s great.”

“Oh,” his father whispered, petting the back of his head gently. “Maybe we should have this conversation tomorrow, when you’re a little less… flammable…”

“Please don’t,” Bae said, clutching at his stomach. Was he going to throw up? That wouldn’t be very fun… “I think it’s great. When I don’t have to know about it. And I’m not calling her mom.”

Yeah, he was going to throw up. But that probably had more to do with the alcohol in his stomach than the topic of his father’s sex life. Though he was sure the latter wasn’t helping.

“Bae!” his father called after him as he rushed out of the room, grabbing at one of the buckets Belle had used to mop the hallway floors just this morning and shoving his head inside, just in the nick of time. “Bae?”

He was a little too occupied to answer his dad. But he felt his father sink down onto the floor next to him, patting his shoulder. “Better birthday than last year?”

Bea tried to nod, had to settle for offering his dad a thumbs up. 

“That means a lot to me, what you said about Belle.”

“Everyone deserves a princess, papa,” he mumbled before being sick again.


	10. The Firstborn Son

Bae hated to admit it, but there were actually lots of great uses for magic, particularly when you were as lazy as he was. Of course his magic was mostly parlor tricks, nothing compared to the heavy lifting his father did, but Bae was getting better. 

It was handy to be able to refill a wine glass without getting up. To wipe his parchment paper clean of errors when he was sketching. Occasionally he’d use it to taunt and tease Belle around the castle, moving things when she wasn’t looking, or tugging at the edge of her skirts so she would trip. 

Magic wasn’t evil, like he’d always thought. It was a tool. It was all in how you used it. 

His dad used it to shape destinies.

Bae used it to mostly annoy other people. 

There were the big spells, of course, that his father insisted he learned. Immobilizing others was the first one he’d had to learn after the night with the soldiers, one he had practically perfected by now. Bae could hold up to ten men at a time before his arms started to grow weak and their will to move was stronger than his will to hold them. Teleportation had been another one Rumple had insisted on - Bae agreeing eagerly at first, only to learn that it still wouldn’t take him outside the invisible wall. He didn’t like that one as much, it left him feeling a bit nauseous and homesick, side effects that both baffled and concerned his father. 

“I don’t think you’re doing it right,” he would mumble, watching as Bae emptied his stomach. 

“Well, if you’ve got another way, I’m all ears,” Bae would snap.

So mostly he walked places. Unless he was trying to startle Belle or his father, and then it was worth it. 

His latest trick, which he and Belle were getting plenty of use out of, was to conjure a ghostly symphony to sing her favorite songs while they worked on repairing the library Rumple had found in one of the previously unexplored castle towers. It had taken Bae months to fix the stairs up to the tower so that Belle could join them, but now Belle spent her days organizing books while Bae repaired the broken shelves. He was excited to have the books too, though not as excited as Belle, because they reminded him of Emma.

Currently he had one of the songs Belle loved from the tavern playing lightly enough for her to hum along, her hips swaying on the ladder as she did her best to dance without moving her feet.

“Bae, hon, can you turn it up?”

He nodded, doing his best imitation of his father’s hand twirl as she giggled and the music swelled to a new volume. 

It only lasted a moment, though, before going completely silent.

Bae snapped his fingers, the music bursting back to life, this time even louder, only to be silenced a second later.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, turning to face him as he grumbled, snapping his fingers again, the loud music filling the room for less than a verse this time before going silent again.

“He’s turning it off,” he growled, standing up and looking at her with his hands on his hips. “I’ll go talk to him, he can’t expect us to get all this work done in silence.”

“Don’t,” she laughed. “It’s almost time for tea anyway. You go downstairs and fetch him, I’ll get the tray ready.”

Bae nodded, thinking of that swirling, ripping sensation he had felt all those years ago the first time he had been teleported. It wasn’t a pleasant memory, but he didn’t have a lot of memories associated with such sudden and rapid movement - the sentiment he needed to fuel the spell. He thought of his father at the end of the purple tunnel and suddenly he was standing in the sitting room, a sour expression on his face.

“We were listening to that music,” Bae grumbled before he realized his father wasn’t alone.

There was a woman seated next to The Dark One, black velvet draping across her shoulders, long, midnight curls arranged carefully to cascade down her spine. The only speck of color were her blood red lips, which were pursed into an uncomfortable grimace at Bae’s arrival.

“Yes, and I was trying to hear myself think,” his father spat back, without missing a blink, “Now run along, the adults are talking.”

“It’s almost tea time,” Bae said, opting to sink down into the chair across from the morbidly gorgeous woman, crossing his legs and playing with the leather cuffs of his sleeves. He imagined that he looked a lot like his father in that moment. “Belle will be here with the cups any moment. Is your friend staying; I’ll need to let Belle know to bring an extra?”

“Friend,” the woman and his father scoffed at the same time, trying to talk over each other for a moment before Rumple silenced her with a glare, turning to address his son. “Regina, who I’m sure you’ve heard of through reputation, was just here to discuss a business deal. She will not be staying much longer.”

“Your majesty,” Bae nodded, waving his hand to summon a book, opening it on his lap and proceeding to tune them out. There was a small thumping noise under the piano bench and Bae saw a toddler, possibly three or four, crawl out from under the furniture. He looked away quickly, not wanting to stare, since his father and the Queen did not seem too concerned with the stray child.

“Then it’s settled,” she said, turning back to his father, “Twice a week.”

“Now, now, dearie, magic comes with a price. We’ve discussed your terms, not my compensation.”

“Fine,” she sighed, her eyes drifting over to Belle who had entered the room balancing a tea tray. “What do you want, Dark One? Money? Land?”

“I’m teaching you magic, Regina,” his father cooed as Belle made her way around the room, setting down a teacup and saucer in front of each individual before heading back over to the tray by the door to fetch the teapot. “The very essence of power. Something that could restart a war between two kingdoms. Serious favors come with serious prices. I have money and land. No deal.”

“Hello there,” Belle whispered, kneeling down to smile at the small child who was peeking out from behind the piano bench. “Would you like some tea, too?”

“Henry is too young for tea,” the Queen snapped, startling Belle, Bae, and the boy. “He’ll be fine. We’ll be leaving as soon as The Dark One can get to his point. Your price?”

“Simple. Your son.”

“Papa,” Bae growled as Belle picked up the little boy and cradled him to her breast. 

“Henry is not for sale,” the Queen warned, her voice thin and measured. The protectiveness in it sending shivers down Bae’s spine.

“Then no deal,” Rumple said with a shrug, picking up his teacup and sipping patiently at it.

“There has to be something else,” the Queen whispered. “I can offer you anything else.”

“Your son, or no magic, dearie.”

This was the Belle thing all over again.

“Papa,” Bae warned, “We’ve talked about this. You can’t just buy and sell people. It’s not okay. What do you want with her son anyway, I’m not little and cute enough anymore?”

“It might be nice to have a baby around the house again,” his father conceded, clearly a joke. He was just poking at the edges of his son’s temper.

“If you want a baby, papa, there are other ways to get one. Ask your wife. Don’t steal from strangers.”

“I would never steal a stranger’s son. What good would that baby be to me? More burden than blessing, I’m sure.”

Belle was startlingly quiet on the whole thing, looking back and forth between the boy in her arms and the adults talking at the table. Bae had expected a little more help from her in this matter. He looked at her imploringly, finally pushing her to speak.

“Rumple, why do you want this child?”

“Yes, Dark One, what do you want with my son?” the Queen hissed.

“He’s not for me,” Rumple laughed. “But this point is, I’m afraid, Regina, non negotiable. You want to learn magic? The price is your son.”

“Fine,” the Queen hissed, startling Bae and Belle both into stunned silence. “You teach me magic, and you can have my firstborn son.”

But his father just giggled.

“I don’t want your firstborn son,” he said with a laugh and a gnarled finger extended to the little boy in Belle’s arms. “I want that one!”

The Queen’s face fell.

There was a small gasp from the back of the room, a clattering sound as Belle bumped into the tea tray, toppling over the pot as she sunk backwards into the chair next to it, looking into the eyes of the boy she was holding.

“Yes, Regina, dear, I know all about your little arrangement with the Charmings. I was the one who put the idea in their heads. They wanted peace, you wanted a child. They were fortunate enough to have an extra, and so a deal was struck. You’re welcome. In so many ways.”

Wait… Bae’s brain was slogging through this a little slower than everyone else's it would appear. Belle was crying, his father was smiling, and Regina looked very nervous.

“So you know, then, that I could never risk hurting Henry.”

“I’m not going to hurt him, I’m honestly not that interested in the little tyke,” Rumple sighed, sitting his teacup down and leaning in with a smile. “He’s caused a fair share of trouble and he’ll probably cause me a lot more before all is said and done. But he is my price.”

“Magic for my son’s soul? It’s hardly a fair deal.”

“Bah, what would I do with a soul? Souls are useless things! I want his time. More importantly, I want to determine how he spends it.”

“It’s the same thing,” she said shaking her head. “You want to take him away from me after I’ve given up so much to get him.”

“That makes two of us,” Rumple said, and then with a sideways glance to his son, “Well, three. Never mind. I offer you this deal. Twice a week I teach you magic alongside my son - you’ll bring Henry with you and he might learn some too, free of charge. In exchange, I want Henry here at my castle, two days a week without your supervision. That’s four days of time total. You can keep him the other three - though I want it clear as crystal, that those days still belong to me.”

“For the rest of his life?” The Queen whispered, looking over nervously at the boy.

The boy who Bae suddenly couldn’t take his eyes off. He had messy brown curls that fell into his eyes, sharply slanted cheekbones still shrouded in baby fat. He seemed startled by all the commotion, on some level aware, because everyone kept saying his name, that this commotion was over him. His wide set eyes the same stormy grey that Bae had always seen reflected back at him in the mirror. 

“No, just until he turns eighteen. And you have my word no harm will come to him while he is in my care. It’s a very good deal, I promise,” Rumple trilled, extending his hand.

The Queen looked as if she had just been offered a dead animal on a plate. 

Rumple sighed. “It’s so much harder, making deals with people who can’t see the future. What more can I offer you, Regina? You and your son both get a chance to learn magic from The Dark One and all you have to do is send your boy over for playdates every now and then. Trust me, you’ll want to take this deal. If not today, then a few years down the line. I might not be so accommodating then.”

“Fine,” she whispered. “Two days a week with me. Two days a week without. We have a deal.”

Bae watched, stunned stupid, as she rose, snatching her toddler back out of Belle’s arms and storming through the open doors, her velvet gown trailing after her.

“Bae,” Belle whispered, rushing to him and wrapping him tightly in a hug. He was too shocked to close his mouth, much less embrace her back, trying to swallow past the sticky feeling in his throat. “Oh, my Gods, Bae.”

“Is that my son?” he whispered.

“You’re welcome,” his father said with a grin, bowing his head in mock gratitude. “Now, I do believe it was tea time.”


	11. The Right Motivation

“Come on, Regina, it’s a unicorn, not a soldier trying to kill you,” his father goaded, “How do you ever expect to do any real magic when you can’t even do the easy spells? My boy had this one mastered in a matter of weeks!”

His boy had been traumatized by a group of soldiers kicking the shit out of him, Bae thought bitterly while the Queen shot him a jealous glare, but that was hardly important now.

“Maybe you should have started with a regular horse,” Bae joked, though neither his father nor the Queen found it funny at all.

He didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

He let the ladybug crawl across his outstretched palm, Henry completely enamored by the bright speck of red, both of them watching the little thing with the same enthusiasm.

He had been trying to teach his son the same spell his father was teaching Regina, but on a much smaller scale. However, every time the boy tried, instead of freezing in Bae’s hand, the ladybug would be tugged across the surface of his skin, closer to Henry, who would just continue to poke and prod at it with enthusiasm. 

In order to freeze the ladybug, you had to actually want it to hold still. Henry just seemed to want to play with it.

Which was fine with Bae. He’d only been a dad in secret for a few months now, but Gods, if he didn’t already want to give Henry everything the little boy asked for.

“Here you go, buddy,” Bae laughed, carefully transferring the bug to Henry’s tiny child fingers, “Careful, if you hold it too tight, it will fly away.”

Henry nodded solemnly, bringing the bug up closer to his eyes. 

“Why does it only have three spots?” the little boy asked. “The one we found last week had seven!”

“You know how your mom gives out medals to the soldiers who fight the most battles?” Bae asked, enjoying the way those big, dark eyes looked up at him in wonder, “Ladybug spots are the same thing. This one must still be young, probably hasn’t been in the bug battles too long.”

“Bug battles?” Henry asked, enraptured by the story. It was the same way Emma had always looked at him when he made up stories for her.

“Yeah. A long time ago a grasshopper fell in love with a ladybug. They wanted to be together, and so they ran away, but it turns out the ladybug was a princess and her family was very mad. They thought the grasshoppers had kidnapped her, so they went to war with them. They’ve been fighting it for generations now.”

“You’re silly, Bae,” Henry laughed, setting the ladybug down on the fence post behind him. “Grasshoppers don’t have spots! They would have medals too, if they were fighting the ladybugs.”

“Maybe they’re just not very good soldiers,” Bae said with a shrug, watching as the little boy pushed himself to his still somewhat clumsy feet. “Or maybe they do have spots and you’ve just never noticed.”

“You’re only startling the unicorn!” He heard his father reprimand Regina. “At this rate you’re going to tire yourself out and agitate the poor thing so badly it will never hold still again!”

Bea let his eyes drift away from Henry for a moment to watch the Queen, hands outstretched, little wisps of magic shooting from her fingertips, barely enough to hold a sparrow still, much less a stallion. Bae got the feeling that the problem wasn’t in Regina’s ability, so much as her desire. She was a quick-witted and short-tempered woman, and he got the feeling she had never much wanted anything to hold still in her life. It was hard to cast a spell when you didn’t really want it.

“I’m going to find one and show you!” Henry chirped, drawing Bae’s attention back to the little boy.

“What?”

“A grasshopper! I’m going to find one. Then you can see they don’t have any spots.”

And so the two busied themselves with searching the grass at the edge of the horse pen for a grasshopper, and then another because Bae had argued that the first one might not have had spots because it was a farmer, not a soldier. 

Bae had thought, spending his afternoons with Emma out in the pastures - racing and dancing, climbing and swimming - that there would never be a more perfect way to spend an afternoon. But he had been wrong. 

This was the most perfect way to spend an afternoon, diving after grasshoppers, cupping his hands around them to lift gently to his son’s face so that the two of them could argue over some made up bullshit they probably wouldn’t even remember tomorrow. He never wanted to do anything else with his life.

There was a commotion over to their left, a startled shriek, the whinny of an angry horse. 

Without warning he saw a flash of black horsehair as the unicorn charged, trying to escape it’s captors, hooves rearing above his son who still stood bent over with his eyes in the grass.

“Henry!” Regina screamed.

Bae raised his hand without thinking, the horse freezing in midair, thick and deadly hooves frozen only inches above the little boy's head. Henry looked just as startled as the unicorn did.

Regina was on them in moments, sweeping her boy up into her arms and sobbing into his hair. “Henry, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m fine mom,” Henry assured her, struggling to escape her grasp, “Bae saved me.”

He saw the Queen cast a nervous glance his way, Bae shrugging as if to say ‘no big deal.’ He had learned quickly, after only his first week of being a secret dad, that the more he panicked, the more likely Henry was to cry and fuss and make a big deal out of something. His heart was racing in his chest, mentally throwing every swear he knew at his father and that damn unicorn, but on the surface he smiled and shrugged like it was nothing.

Speak of the devil.

“It wouldn’t have happened,” his father remarked, strolling casually across the field to join them and the frozen unicorn, “If you could just get the damn spell right.”

“I’m trying!” Regina protested. “Maybe you’re just not a very good teacher.”

“Maybe you’re just not capable of learning.”

“What do you think about?” Bae asked, lifting Henry out of his mother’s arms and setting him gently on the other side of the fence. No more near-death experiences for him today. Bae waved his hand and the unicorn unfroze, trotting in a nervous circle, unhappy and unsure about it’s newly mobile state.

“I think about freezing the damn unicorn!”

“Don’t,” Bea said, stepping up and taking her hand in his, raising it to the unicorn. “Think about Henry. Think about how he is growing up so fast and it hurts. Think about how much you wish he could stay this little forever, have time stand still with him in your arms.”

She gave him a skeptical look, shrugging him off of her so that she was extending her arm on her own, and then with a deep breath and a sigh, she closed her eyes and Bae could feel a very different kind of magic flowing from her fingertips. Not his father’s magic, but his own.

“Now that's what I call passable,” His father laughed as Regina opened her eyes to see the frozen unicorn standing in front of her.

*

“Bae, can’t we go outside and play ball?” Henry whined as Bae did his best to keep the wiggling boy in his lap, one of the picture books Belle had started stocking the library with stretched across the both of them like a table. 

Bae cast a nervous glance out the window where Regina and his father stood around a twisting, writhing tree, it’s branches dark and clawing at the shadow soldiers his father had summoned for their practice. It upset Bae a little. Partly because of the darkness of the magic radiating from the pair, partly because it would have been nice if his father had summoned shadow soldiers for his training instead of paying very real men with very real swords to try and hack him to bits.

Regardless, he didn’t want Henry around that kind of magic, and though he and Regina had a very tenuous relationship at best, they had finally agreed on that point.

“No ball today, we’ll play tomorrow when your mom isn’t here,” Bae said. “Don’t you want to finish this book? We were just getting to the good part with the dragon and the knight!”

Henry pouted, shaking his head, the makings of a temper tantrum clear on his little, chubby face. Regina had warned Bae that he couldn’t give in to every whim the boy had - that she was raising a prince, not a brat - but when it was just him and his son he couldn’t resist. He saw the way Emma had pouted and whined when she wasn’t getting her way, and more than anything he wanted to give her - and his son - everything they ever wanted. And anyway, who cared if he spoiled the boy? He wasn’t an acknowledged parental figure, he was an indulgent nanny, and so he could get away with bending a few of Regina’s parenting guidelines.

“Well I want to hear how the story ends,” he said feigning enthusiasm, turning the page and letting out a startled gasp at the picture of the dragon covering the earth in fire. "Oh my goodness, Henry, I'm worried the knight might not make it out of this one!"

Henry sat, unmoved.

“You buying any of this?” Bae asked with a raised eyebrow.

Henry raised an eyebrow in imitation of Bae, a small smile and a shake of his head melting any resistance Bae had felt.

“Alright, no more reading,” Bae groaned, lifting the boy off his lap and returning the book back to the shelf. “What do you say we go help Belle in the kitchen?”

“Can we make cookies again?”

“Last time we made cookies you ate the whole batch and were sick all night. Your mom nearly killed me,” Bae said, taking the boy’s hand in his and leading him off towards the kitchens. “So of course we can make cookies, but you’re going to have to share a few with me this time!”

The kitchen always smelled wonderful these days, with the soldiers his father kept on staff, and the farm hands now minding their functional stables, and a few extra servants to provide a little more free time for Bae and Belle, the kitchen was always in use. Bae didn’t mind having the extra people around, and Belle seemed to enjoy it, but his father was still skeptical about the whole affair. He didn’t put a stop to it though, Belle’s happiness outweighing any deep-seated mistrust of people the monster inside the man seemed to have. 

“If it isn’t my little Prince Charming,” Belle squealed as they entered, picking Henry up around the waist and lifting him to stand on one of the counters, “I think you’ve grown at least three more inches since I last saw you!”

Henry giggled.

“He hasn’t,” Bae assured her, he had taken to measuring Henry’s height in notches on the library door. “But he has learned how to do a somersault, and will gladly show you if you ask.”

“Maybe later,” she chuckled, finding a spare apron and a wooden spoon to hand to Henry, who brandished it like a sword. “For now I could use the extra hands. Bae, hon, would you fetch that bag of sugar for me, it’s too heavy to lift.”

He nodded, heaving the bag from the pantry and dragging it back to where Belle and Henry were talking.

“I want to make cookies! And you have to listen to me because I’m a prince and you’re not!”

“Hey little man,” Bae said, taking the spoon that his son was waving around a little too enthusiastically out of his hands and setting it down. “That’s not very nice. And anyways, Belle used to be a princess, so I think, technically, she doesn’t have to listen to you.”

“Really?” Henry asked, surprised as Belle nodded with a small giggle. “My mom was a princess.”

Bae’s heart broke a little as Belle squeezed his fingers for encouragement.

“Yes, I suppose Regina was a princess once,” she nodded.

“Not Regina,” Henry insisted. “My other mom!”

“Henry,” Bae asked cautiously, “What do you mean?”

“Regina isn’t my real mom,” Henry said, as if Bae was slow in the head. “Regina says my real mom was a very pretty princess. And my dad was a hero. He died trying to protect me and my princess mom from The Dark One. That’s why she had to give me up, to keep me safe.”

Bae’s blood ran cold. Died? No. He was banished. 

“Sweetie, who told you that?” Belle asked as Bae had to lower himself onto one of the stools by the stove to keep from losing his balance.

Henry shrugged. 

“Do you know where you are right now?” Belle prodded. Right. Henry must not know this was The Dark One’s castle, or he might not be so chipper about visiting. 

“The kitchen?” he guessed.

Bae made an attempt to talk to Regina about it that night as they were leaving.

“That?” she asked skeptically, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifted in Henry’s direction. “It’s just a story that he tells himself. You know how kids can be, Baelfire, turning everything into a fairy tale. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just… if The Dark One killed his father, don’t you think he might not want to be here? That maybe you shouldn’t want to be here…”

She shrugged, still looking at him as if she were trying to discern some ulterior motive. “I’m thankful, to be honest. One less parent I have to worry about. And honestly I don’t believe it - I’m sure the father just ran off in fear of his life when he found out he’d knocked up the princess. But that’s not a very nice story, so I went with the one The Charmings gave me. A noble death, a grieving princess. It was easier to sell to a little boy.”

Bae bit his lip, nodding. “So, the princess… she gave him up in grief?”

“She gave him up because her parents told her to,” Regina laughed, “That silly girl got herself into way more trouble than she was prepared to deal with and was just lucky mommy and daddy were there to clean up the mess.”

“It sounds like you were lucky, too,” Bae said through gritted teeth, pain he hadn’t felt in almost three years welling up inside his chest.

“Yes,” she said, smiling softly at Henry, “I suppose I was, wasn’t I?”

*

Belle had packed the five of them a picnic, spread out on the hay bales they used as chairs and tables in the field outside the castle where Rumple was teaching Regina magic. It was too beautiful of a day to waste, and so she and Bae sat munching on scones while Rumple and Regina continued to bicker. She was right, The Dark One was a terrible teacher. He was right too, Regina was not a very good listener. 

Henry wandered around the field, a little leather ball at his feet that he was busy kicking around without a care in the world. The game would have been more fun with a few more players, but like his father, Henry never seemed to object to using his imagination. He shouted and laughed as he chased after it, whatever imaginary story he was telling seeming to change as he did another lap around the group. This time he was hunting a rabbit, the last time the ball had been a fairy leading Henry on an adventure. It was always exciting for Bae to see what the next story would be. 

“You just reach in, and you take it,” his father hissed, the immobilized unicorn - that poor, poor unicorn that Bae and Belle had affectionately dubbed Unfortunate Una - towering over Regina, it’s breast frozen at shoulder-height. 

“I can’t!” she shouted, smacking her hand against the unicorn's chest, “It’s almost as if this beast is solid, made out of layers of flesh and blood meant to keep it’s heart precisely where it is.”

Rumple rolled his eyes, “The longer you think of it that way, the more of my time you will waste. And I don’t like when people waste my time.”

_ “I don’t like when people waste my time,” _ Belle grumbled, in her best impersonation of his father.  _ “I’m so big and scary. Everybody fear me!” _

Bea chuckled, “For someone so against wasting his time, he certainly has no qualms about wasting mine. I went all the way to the village yesterday to buy a skein of yarn, and when I got there, he was already there. Said he got tired of waiting for me to walk, like an idiot.”

She laughed, offering him one of the berries from their picnic basket as Henry did another lap, this time announcing that the ball was a genie and he had to catch it if he wanted a wish. “Tell me about it. I wasted all day last week organizing his spell books by author, only to have him tell me he wanted them done by subject.”

“This is impossible,” they heard Regina roar, snapping her fingers as the unicorn jumped back to life, darting off across the field to munch on the grass in the far corner, shooting mistrusting glances their way. 

“Maybe you just don’t have the right motivation, dearie,” his father trilled, a heavy weight sinking in Bae’s stomach as he felt the raw magic prickle on his skin, causing the hairs on his arms to rise, something hateful and dark swirling through the sky. And then, without warning, his father was holding Henry by the back of his little neck, feet dangling in the air.

“Put him down,” Regina hissed.

“Papa!” Bea shouted.

“This isn’t funny, Rumple,” Belle added.

“Make me,” The Dark One said, the white’s of his eyes disappearing completely as a dagger appeared in his other hand. “Take my heart Regina, or I’ll prick his.”

Bae watched in horror as Regina lunged forward, his father disappearing in a cloud of smoke, only to appear again to her left. She approached him cautiously, hands outstretched, like one might with a vicious dog holding something very valuable in its mouth. But the slow approach didn’t work any better and he was off in another cloud of smoke, this time appearing again, a few feet behind her.

“If it were my son,” he taunted, “I would have ripped his attacker’s heart out by now.”

Bae knew that was true enough, wheels spinning in his head.

“Take my heart Regina,” Rumple continued to croon, “Make me stop. You’re running out of time.”

She couldn’t do it. Bae could see it in her eyes, real fear taking over the shaky nerves he had been feeling moments before. She wasn’t smart enough. She wasn’t fast enough. She wasn’t strong enough. 

“It’s just my heart,” he heard his father tease as Regina approached again, “just one tiny little beating organ. You want your son unharmed, you'll take my heart.”

“I’m sorry, Belle,” Bae whispered, and like always she met his eyes unfazed, a brave face masking what she was really feeling.

“It’s okay, Bae, I understand.”

He reached out, his fingertips pressing against the patch of her dress directly over her heart. There was resistance at first, but as he lightened his touch he felt the flesh give way, his hand sinking into something way too warm and way too wet for him to be comfortable with the sensation. And it was like no magic he had ever felt. It was intoxicating, addicting, empowering.

As gently as he could, he wrapped his hand around the throbbing mass in the center of her chest, tugging lightly, but it wouldn’t give. There was a sucking sensation, as if every muscle in her body was intent on keeping her heart, and the hand wrapped around it, firmly inside, where it belonged. And so he relaxed, stopped trying to tug the organ free, and held it there for a moment, sensing his own calm spreading into her. And then he was able to remove it.

“You’re a coward,” His father was yelling. “You don’t deserve magic and you don’t deserve your son. If you can’t take a heart then you can’t lead an army and you can’t protect your child!”

“Put him down!” Bae commanded stepping forward to face his father, Belle’s beating heart, bright and pink, held gently in his hand.

The Dark One paused, black eyes shrinking back to slightly smaller grey ones, the sweaty gold of his skin seeming to flicker in the sunlight. 

“Put. Him. Down,” Bae repeated with the same authority that his father had once used to command him to light a candle. 

“I’m not really going to hurt him,” His father protested. “I’m just bluffing.”

“And I don’t really want to hurt her,” Bae assured him. “But I’m not bluffing.”

Slowly he watched his father lower Henry to the ground, taking off at a run towards Regina as quickly as his little feet hit the grass. She pulled him into her arms, holding him so tightly Bae thought he might just burst. Bae tried not to be hurt, after all, he was the one who had saved Henry. But he was also the one holding a living heart in his hand. 

“Are you quite finished with your theatrics?” his father asked, reaching gently for Belle’s heart. “Can we put this all behind us?”

“Touch him again and I will end you, old man,” Bae hissed, handing over the heart and storming off back towards the castle.

“Wait!” Regina called, running after him with her long skirts bundled in her hands the way Emma used to hold hers when she was trying to keep them out of the riverbank. “Baelfire, wait!”

And so he slowed, turning to see a soft smile on her lips, the first time the Evil Queen had ever looked truly human to him.

“Thank you. You’re a good man. A brave man. Thank you.”

He shook his head. He was none of those things. He had always thought he was. But in this moment he felt like his father, and he knew his father was neither. 

“I’m glad Henry has a man like you in his life.”

And he was feeling entirely too many complicated things about himself and his father and his son right now to be even remotely comfortable with the way she was looking at him. 

“Henry could use a father,” she pushed. “My kingdom could use a king who isn’t afraid to lead alongside me.”

And he wanted so badly to be Henry’s father.

There was also a point in his life where he would have loved the idea of being a king - or at least a prince.

He could feel it, that intoxicating magic from when he had ripped out Belle’s heart, screaming for more power. A throne. An Army. A means to take vengeance on those who had wronged him.

Suffering.

They would all suffer for the shame they caused him. The pain. No longer a shepherd, he would be a king. They had banished him, cast him aside, considered him worthless. Standing in front of him now was a way to make them all regret those choices.

He shook his head, trying his best to expel those thoughts and the dark magic that seemed to have brought them. 

It was a tempting argument. One his father had fallen for.

But it was the wrong kingdom. The wrong mother of his child.

Bae didn’t want power.

He just wanted his family.

“I’m sorry, Regina,” he whispered, “I’m afraid I’d be no good to you, as a king or a husband.”

The smile disappeared from her face, her brow furrowed, the impatience and frustration he was used to seeing on her back in full force. “You’re a good man, Baelfire, and a brave man. But you’re a stupid man, too.”

*

_ Emma, _

_ I know that this letter will probably never reach you. I know that these words, these words I want so desperately for you to hear, will probably never reach your eyes or your ears. But you know me, and I’m stubborn. I’ve never been smart enough to know when to quit, and so I want to assure you now, more than ever, I am still fighting for you. _

_ Maybe I’m writing these words for myself, maybe they aren’t for you, but Gods, if I could only make you hear them… I know you think I’m dead, or that I’ve abandoned you, but not a day goes by where I don't wish you were here with me. Not a night passes where I don't long for the weight of your head on my shoulder as I drift off to dreams of you. _

_ Last we spoke, you asked me to answer a question for you. You asked me what our child would be like, but I never got a chance to answer it. I wonder now, if you knew then… but I digress. I put a lot of thought into my answer, ready to tell you about our blue-eyed baby and all the dreams I had for it. I knew then, that there could never be a child more perfect than the one I had dreamed up for the two of us. _

_ But I was wrong. _

_ Henry is more perfect in every way. Our son is brave and curious and kind. He is a natural-born storyteller like his papa and he fears nothing, save restraints, just like his mom. I could waste time telling you all about his looks, I had spent a long time thinking about our child’s features, but now they don’t really seem to matter. Except for he has your smile. And just like your smile, it melts my heart and turns me from man to slave in a matter of seconds.  _

_ I could talk about him for hours, and yet I’m limited to just this page - any more would be reckless investment in a letter that is likely to burn - and so I will tell you the things that I believe you would want to know. _

_ He is loved. He is cared for. He will never want for anything. You can rest assured that our baby is being looked after, by me and many other powerful forces. And I promise you, the same way I promised I would always love you, that nothing will ever hurt him so long as I am still drawing breath on this Earth.  _

_ Your son and I love you more than words on paper can express, _

_ Baelfire.  _


	12. The Unwanted War

“It’s unwise,” Regina mumbled, “I have nothing to gain from this.”

“You have everything to gain,” his father urged, continuing to point to the map on the table while Bae bounced Henry - who was getting rather heavy - on his hip. “You lost last time because you were unprepared. In the last five years you’ve gained confidence, your army has grown, your magic is… well it’s more than it used to be.”

Regina shot The Dark One a skeptical glare across the table.

“That’s where we live,” Henry pointed to a spot on the map, looking up at Bae with a grin.

“It sure is, buddy,” Bae answered back proudly, “Your tutor is really teaching you a lot about maps, isn’t he?”

“I can find our castle, and your castle, and the border of my kingdom,” the little boy began to list off on his fingers, naming all the things he was very excited to be learning in his royal classes. “And the border of my princess mom’s kingdom.”

Yeah, Bae could find that border too, and he didn’t even need a map.

“You should come visit us, Bae!”

“Maybe one day, kiddo,” Bae mumbled, knowing that Regina would never hear of it.

“Henry,” Regina said, reaching out and pressing a kiss to her son’s forehead, “Please be a little quieter, we’re trying to discuss something here.”

Bae held a finger up to his lips, causing Henry to smirk, but fall silent. 

“I just think I have more to lose now, than to gain,” she insisted, turning back to his father’s hungry eyes. “Your wife is of royal descent, ask her for an army if you want a war so badly.”

“If my wife’s family had an army, she wouldn’t be my wife,” he trilled, turning the map to point to the main road connecting Regina’s land to The Charming’s. “Now, if you start here, and push forward-”

“I’ve had enough!” Regina shouted, lifting Henry out of Bae’s arms. “I’m not sending my men into an unprovoked war!”

“Is it, though?” Rumple asked, rushing around the table to follow her out the door. “If I remember correctly you never got what you wanted last time - Snow White’s head on a stick. I’d say The Charmings have earned their war. Don’t let the last five years of motherhood make you soft. You came to me to learn magic, why?”

“I don’t know,” she hissed.

“You know,” Rumple answered, “You never wanted to feel helpless again. You’ve wanted this war for longer than my son has been alive! Hell, don’t think of it as a new war, just the old one that’s been paused for a while!”

“What interest do you have in this?”

“I don’t like it when my pupils waste potential!”

With an angry huff Regina was spinning on her heels and carrying Henry out of the room. Rumple looked like he wanted to chase after her.

“Drop it, papa,” Bae mumbled, leaning over the table and tracing the river on the map where he and Emma used to swim. “Whatever you’re trying to do, just drop it.”

*

Bae had three nights a week where he didn’t see Henry, and they were the worst three nights of his week. They seemed to drag on, despite both his father and Belle’s best efforts to keep him happy and distracted. Eventually, though, he grew tired of their well-meaning attempts and chose to keep himself busy the way he had before Henry had arrived in his life.

“I’ll take another pint,” he told the barkeep, eyeing the card table longingly, a picture of his face with a giant X through it hung where all could see, next to the table. It wasn’t a very good likeness, he had half a mind to sketch them a better one, just for posterity, but he was still a little bitter they wouldn't deal to him, even if he agreed to let them have their money back at the end of the night. 

“Bae!” came a cheerful voice at the back of the bar, one of his old soldier friends from his training days. They still sparred occasionally in their free time, but Bae’s skill had outgrown the friendly competitions, even without his magic. “Look at you, like a drowned cat! Let me buy you a drink! The boys and I are here to celebrate!”

“I might look like a drowned cat, but I’m the only wet pussy that you’ll be seeing tonight,” Bae laughed, embracing the soldier like an old friend. “Yeah, all right, I’ll stay for a few rounds of cards.”

The group of young soldiers, all of whom he had beaten at swordplay and at poker, glared back at him skeptically. 

“Fine, drinks and darts?”

They relented, leading him to the little table in the back and for the first time he realized they were wearing their old soldier gear, the black leather long coats with Regina’s insignia stitched on the breast. 

“Out of curiosity,” Bae began as he slid into the booth with the other soldiers, “What brings you to these parts?”

The other men his age exchanged a couple nervous glances around the table before their leader spoke, “Just doing some freelance work. Not a lot of pay for a soldier during peace times.”

“But you’re dressed in the Queen’s attire,” Bae pointed out as one of the barmaids approached, handing drinks all around while the other men flirted with her, their hands a little too loose for Bae’s comfort. He had no room to judge, of course, but it made him squirm knowing that most of the soldiers had wives back home. He had believed his father, long ago, when he had said that marriage was a commitment to take seriously. He hadn’t realized that “serious” varied in meaning from person to person. 

“Right, we can probably take these off now,” the leader said and the men began to shrug out of their coats, laughing as they sipped their drinks and swapped stories about what they had been up to in the last couple years since the peace treaty was signed. And Bae was sucked into their chatter, managing to forget about Henry and Emma for a little while as he laughed and teased right along with the other men. 

“I’ve got to hit the head,” his friend said, unclipping his sword sheath from his belt and handing it to Bae. “Hold onto this for me.”

Bae looked down at the weapon in his hand, startled to see the state it was in. The soft leather was… sticky. Bae’s stomach flipped. What had his friends been up to tonight?

When the soldier returned, sliding back into the booth next to Bae, he took his sword back and continued to laugh as if nothing had changed.

“You shouldn’t put your sword away bloody,” Bae mumbled. “It’ll ruin the blade.”

The table fell silent, eyes on him.

“You have something you want to say, Bae?” growled one of the older men at the table. He had a scar above his left collarbone where Bae had nicked him with his own sword a few years back. He had not been one of the ones who stuck around to help Bae train. In fact, as his eyes scanned the table, Bae realized that aside from the man who greeted him, none of these men were here under his father’s employ. At least, not as guards and teachers at his father’s castle.

“Is Regina starting the war again?” he asked, looking at them all in earnest. 

“The war is starting again,” another of the men from across the table answered back.

Bae nodded. That was all the answer he needed.

“Well, I’d better get home,” he said, quickly making his exit as his friend caught his wrist.

“You saw nothing here tonight.”

“Of course. And nothing paid for my bar tab, too,” Bae smiled, leaving with a cheeky wave to the group. 

*

“Why do you want this war so badly?” Bae demanded, startling his father out of his reading.

“What war?” Rumple asked, playing stupid.

“The one you just paid a band of scoundrels to start. The one that Henry’s birth put a stop to, five years ago.”

“Oooooh,” his father trilled, “That war!”

“What do you have to gain from it?”

“Why do you assume I have something to gain from it?” His father said, closing his book and crossing his hands as Bae pulled out the chair, spinning it around and seating himself to rest his arms on the back. “Maybe the sheer chaos is enough to bring me joy.”

“You always have something to gain,” Bae reminded him. “What is it this time?”

“I have many deals I must maintain, Bae, I wouldn’t expect you to know about, or even understand, all of them. But it will always bring me joy, seeing The Charmings suffer. Don’t you agree, son, after what they’ve put you through?”

“No! It’s not right. Regina doesn’t want to fight this war. You shouldn’t be putting her in such a difficult position. When the Charmings find out what she’s done, what they think she’s done, she’s going to have to defend herself. Fighting a war on the defensive is a lot harder than going on the offensive. She’ll lose men and resources, and possibly her kingdom. You shouldn’t have put her in that position!”

“Why do you care about the position I’m putting Regina in? Why do you care about Regina?”

“Because she is the mother of my child!” Bae yelled, slamming his fist on the table so hard his father jumped. “Because you are putting Henry at risk!”

“No,” his father whispered icily, meeting Bae’s eyes with a cold malice that Bae was entirely unfamiliar with. “The mother of your child thinks I murdered you. My own son. She thinks I spilled your blood trying to take her child away. She thinks you made a deal, something stupid for your firstborn, and that you lost your life trying to go back on it. Regina is a placeholder, Bae, until we can get back what is rightfully ours.”

“How do you know that?” Bae whispered back, his throat dry. The obvious answer would be that Belle had told him. But his father’s hesitation was answer enough. “How do you know that!?”

“You’re banished Bae, not I.”

“You’ve been back?” Bae hissed in disgust. “To our home?”

A small nod.

“To the city?”

Another nod.

“To the castle?”

A long pause, and then another, very small nod.

Bae shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve let her think I was dead this whole time! You could have told her! You could have told her how much I miss her. How much I want to be with her! You could have led her to me and ended my misery years ago!”

Bae was crying now. Openly weeping. 

His father was a monster, a murderer, a demon. And yet Bae had managed to love him though all that. But this? This was worse.

“Bae,” his father said reaching for him, but he was already standing and storming towards the door. This ended tonight. “Bae, the curse still applies to me, too! I can’t carry any word from you to her!”

“No, you can’t. But you could have told her yourself. Without me asking you to. You could have done it out of the goodness of your heart!”

“Honestly, the impulse never struck me!” he heard his father call as Bae burst into the formal dining room. They hadn’t used it in years, preferring to take their meals in a cozier, more familiar setting, even when Regina was joining them. 

At the back of the room was a wardrobe Bae’s father sealed with blood magic. It had been a sign of trust, a way of showing Bae that they were in this together when he had first been banished. His father could have purchased a regular lock, could have found all manners of ways to keep him out, but the blood magic was a gesture, that even through their pain, their bond would be thicker than the blood they shared. 

But they apparently weren’t in this together. That blood, apparently, wasn't very thick.

Bae raised his hand, throwing the doors open wide with a gust of wind while he approached, the anger inside of him boiling over into the kind of magic he had always sworn he wouldn’t use. But he was too emotional to nitpick now.

The dagger wasn’t hard to find, wrapped in a piece of Bae’s old cloak, the one stained in his blood from the night they had arrived. It felt cold in Bae’s hand, lighter than he had expected, comfortable in his grip. As if it belonged there. 

_ Another way… Another way back to Emma, _ the dagger promised, whispering seductively in his ear.  _ A little dark magic, yes, but don’t the ends justify the means? _

“What are you going to do, Bae?” his father asked, appearing in a puff of purple smoke behind him. “Command me to break the deal. It won’t work. There are some magics greater than my own. I can’t break a contract I’ve committed to.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Bae hissed, turning around to face his father, holding the dagger between the two of them like the rift that had been building for a decade. 

_ He’s not your father, _ the dagger reminded him,  _ your father wouldn’t have let you suffer for so long. _

“Can’t,” his father insisted, pleading in front of Bae and the dagger. “I promise Bae, there is another way. But you have to trust me. You have to give it time.”

“Dark One, I command you, let Princess Emma know that I’m alive.”

His father shrugged. “I can do that little poof-y thing, if it would make you feel better, but I’ll forget your message as soon as I’m across the line. Bae, she wouldn’t believe me if I tried. Understandably, she doesn’t trust me. That spell, the one on your scarf that I gave them, it was too strong. You’ll have to break it yourself. No one else will be able to convince her you’re alive. I thought they’d tell her you chose to be banished. I thought we could work around that. Sure, she would hate you, but she would know you were out there, might even come seeking closure. But The Charmings took the coward’s way out. The clever bastards.”

“Dark One, I command you,” Bae stuttered, his voice weak with the tears still pouring down his face, “Take me to her.”

“Oh, put the knife down, Bae. I’ve already told you it won’t work,” his father said sadly, wrapping him in a hug. 

“For six years I’ve been paying a child to bring me news of the kingdom and I could have just asked my own father,” he sobbed. “My own father, who never bothered to tell me he had seen her.”

“What do you want me to say, Bae? That she’s heartbroken? That she mourned your loss, Henry’s loss, for years? What do you want to know? That she’s maimed the last three suitors her parents have brought her? That she’s got a fighter’s spirit, a loving heart, a devotion to her people? She’s known as The Peasants' Princess - spends her time riding the countryside, solving minor civil disputes her parents’ couldn’t be bothered with. She’s a good one, Bae, and I will help you get back to her, you just have to-”

“Give it time,” he mumbled, pulling away from his father and handing over the dagger with his head hung in defeat. “I know. You keep saying that. But I’m getting tired. I don’t know how much longer I can fight for this.”

“Would it help you to know, her horse’s name is Baelfire?”

Bae felt tears fill his eyes, another sob escaping his throat. He had cried for Emma so many times. He had cried that she had gone through everything alone. That she felt abandoned, betrayed. He had cried for the thought of her giving birth to their son, in pain and afraid. He had cried when he realized she must have suffered greatly to give Henry up.

But in six years, he hadn’t cried for himself.

Not until tonight.

*

“You reckless bastard!” Regina screamed, the doors to the library flying open with magic as she stormed in, anger boiling from every pore. “You foolish, selfish, arrogant ass!”

“May I ask to whom you are referring?” Rumple asked, looking back and forth between Regina and Bae, the spell book the two of them had been looking over forgotten completely on the table.

“I think it’s for you,” Bae whispered. Though he couldn’t quite be sure. There were a lot of adjectives in there that could be applied to him as well.

“You think this is a joke? You’ve started a war I told you I didn’t want to fight.”

“Calm down, Regina,” Rumple urged, “You almost won the war last time - you have the better army, the better supply routes, and the support of a certain deal-making demi-demon. You’re going to win.”

“This isn’t about the war!”

“Oh, my mistake, see, cause it seemed a little about the war,” The Dark One said with a sneer, holding up his fingers to indicate a small quantity, presumably representing the amount of concern she seemed to be directing towards his actions.

“You’ve violated my peace treaty! They’re going to take my son!”

Bae stiffened, turning angrily to his father. 

“No they’re not,” his dad said, waving both of them away as he stepped away from the argument, turning to look out the tower window to where Bae’s stone wall could be seen, lit up on the horizon by the setting sun. “It was one little village, right on the border. They probably haven’t even heard about it yet.”

“They’ve already sent word. They’re demanding I send Henry back. And they’re sending an army.”

His father clapped, the delicate little display of excitement that clearly belonged to his inner demon, “This is so exciting!”

Regina reached out for Bae, but he took a step back quickly, his eyes wide with distrust. 

“If they take my son, you best believe I will take yours.”

“You’ve already tried, dearie. How many times does he have to tell you, he really just wants to be friends?” 

She lunged again, this time catching Bae by the back of his neck, nails digging into his flesh. He winced as she drew blood, too nervous and afraid for his son to act on his instincts of self preservation.

“I’m. Not. Laughing.”

“Calm down, Regina, you can stop feeling up my boy, everything is going to work out.”

“Are you deaf, or just stupid?” she screamed, shoving Bae to the floor as she strode past him. “They are going to take Henry!”

“But they can’t,” his father chuckled, that toothy grin not exactly calming. “Not without breaking our deal. Henry’s time belongs to me. Now aren’t you glad you agreed to my terms?”

“You knew!” Regina accused.

“That I was going to use you to start a war, of course I did, dearie!” His father laughed back.

“And you thought to protect my son?”

“I thought to protect my assets. It would be rather difficult for you to fight this war, were they to rip your child away from you. So I made sure they couldn’t, not without evoking the consequences of a broken deal.”

“You protected my son,” Regina whispered, seeing softness behind the monster that had replaced Bae’s father. “Why would you protect my son?”

“He’s not protecting your son,” Bae corrected as he pushed himself off the floor, “He’s protecting mine.”

Regina glanced back and forth between the two men, her eyes trailing uncomfortably over Bae’s features, seeing Henry’s mirrored back at her. 

“You and the princess?” she whispered.

“Me and the princess,” he confirmed, stepping forward to face his father. “Why is Regina fighting this war, papa?”

“King and Queen Charming are not my biggest fans, it would be nice to have a monarch on the throne whose ear I could whisper into.”

“No, really, papa, why is she fighting this war?”

“Well,” his dad chuckled, “A very long time ago there was a princess who loved a stable boy-”

“Shepherd,” Bae corrected.

“No, I do believe Daniel was a stable boy, was he not, Regina?”

The Queen met Bae’s eyes across the room, her expression falling. It was a pain he knew all too well. Not every boy who had made his mistakes escaped with their life. 

“Don't look at me like that,” Regina hissed, “I was a different person back then. And I don't need you sympathy now.”

Bae felt pity for her. Maybe she should have stayed that person. The princess who loved the stable boy, instead of the Queen who murdered millions in revenge.

“We all have our stable boys, our shepherds, our miller’s daughters,” his father trilled. 

“Our demented demons,” Belle added as she entered the room, setting down a basket of knitting as she took in the sorry sight in front of her.

“So it’s about revenge?” Bae whispered. “We’re all here for revenge?”

“It’s not about the war or the revenge,” Belle spoke up, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the blood off Bae’s neck and grin up at his father, “It’s about the land, isn’t it, Rumple?”

“My clever girl,” Rumple grinned, beckoning her closer to him with a twitch of his hand, as if pulling on invisible strings, she followed. “My beautiful princess.”

The way his dad smiled at her unnerved Bae. When Rumple smiled at his son it was always a crack in the mask of The Dark One, a little piece of the old spinner shining through. But when he grinned at Belle, it was as if the whole mask bent with his face, loving her from both the soft and the sharp places of his soul. 

“You want land?” Regina asked, “You should have just said that, old man. How many acres? Your old pastures? What am I taking back, for you to have?”

“I want all of it,” his father whispered. “I want you to wipe any claim the Charmings have to their land away like a leaf in a river.”

Bae had finally caught up. He was actually a little impressed with his father.

“You want me to fight a war so that all of the spoils go to you?”

“Well, dearie, you’re already fighting the war,” his father conceded with a twirl of his hand and that grimace of a smile that made Bae’s skin crawl. 

“Bae’s curse,” Belle offered, as Rumple pulled her against his chest, burying his face in her neck, with a soft hum of contentment - like a purring cat. “Bae can’t set foot on Charming land. But he can go where he pleases on yours.”

“Yes. What I want, Regina, is a world where my boy can walk freely, no more invisible boundaries, no more throwing pebbles across the magical wall like a lovesick puppy. You win this war, and we all get something we want. Bae is free to see his Emma again, and you have two kingdoms to rule as one. And all I ask in return, as those I love run off and leave me, is that you parcel off the land I’m living on and a few of the neighboring villages, not many, I’m not greedy, and give them to me. As my reward, I get to make my Belle a queen again. It’s a nice deal, I think, for all involved, yes? I’m actually quite proud of it.”

And for the first time, all four of them were on the same page. 

This wasn’t just a war that they would fight.

It was a war they would win.


	13. The Wounded Soldier

Bae had never been a very fussy sleeper. As a child, both his parents had commended him on how little he whined and cried, a happy baby. Once he grew out of his mother’s arms and into the little cot by his father’s fire, they had expected him to struggle with the newfound independence, but he had just slept as peacefully and as deeply as if under a sleeping curse. 

In his teen years, he had slept anywhere he could catch a moment of peace, out in the pastures with Emma, along the river banks, rocks and twigs no obstacle to his comfort.

It wasn’t until he had arrived here, in The Dark One’s castle, that he had even had a proper bed to begin with. Not only a bed, but one with goose-feather down pillows and thick wool blankets that kept him warm at night. 

He had learned, though, that there was one thing that could startle him out of a dead sleep every time.

“I had a bad dream,” Henry mumbled, looking over the edge of the mattress at Bae, his dark eyes and mop of messy hair the only thing visible from Bae’s pillow.

Without a word, Bae moved over, shifting the blankets so the little boy could climb in next to him, wrapping his fingers around Bae’s arm like a stuffed animal and resting his chubby cheek on his father’s shoulder.

Brushing the boy’s hair back as he hummed him a song, Bae thought of how Emma had held him the same way. How he had sung her songs and told her stories and she had drifted off just as peacefully as their son did. He missed her so badly it hurt sometimes, even after all these years. Wished she could be here to share these moments with him. Henry had lost his first two teeth last month, Emma would have loved to see that big gap-toothed smile. 

This little nighttime routine was becoming more and more common, and it worried Bae that war was affecting Henry, despite how hard they were all trying to keep him from it. Regina had agreed to move him to Bae’s care full time, not because he was the boy’s father - she made that very clear - but because The Dark One’s castle was further out of harm’s way, not to mention a little harder for the Charmings to justify the resources for an attack, since it wasn’t on valuable land or near any important trade routes. Besides the small squabbles between the Merry Men of Sherwood and the small garrison of men the Charmings had stationed nearby, they didn’t see much action this way at all. 

Bae thought this new arrangement was just as well, if The Charmings were going to try and take Henry back now, they might as well have to face the boy they had banished to do it. 

And he would be ready this time. 

But as much as Bae could have stared at that beautiful cherub all night, Henry was warm and his weight on Bae’s shoulder was comforting, and it wasn’t long until the two of them were drifting off again, a sleeping symphony - Bae’s loud snores and Henry’s little whistles from his missing teeth. 

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!” Belle cheered, opening the door to Bae’s room and then apologizing quietly as she saw him gesture quickly to the sleeping child, curled up against his side with little fingers clutching at Bae’s nightshirt. “I just thought you’d want to know, there’s fighting in the forest again.”

“Oh, I thought you were bringing me breakfast in bed,” He sighed, holding still so as not to startle Henry as he watched her move over to the curtains and pull them open, sunlight illuminating the smoke rising from Sherwood forest. “What kind of mom are you?”

She leaned low over him, her chocolate curls tickling his cheek as he had to turn his face to avoid sneezing, “Call me mom one more time and…”

“And?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, shifting his weight enough to sit up on his elbow without pulling his arm out from under Henry as she smacked him on the back of the head.

“And… you’re grounded, mister!”

He laughed, “I was hoping you’d say you’d spank me.”

She shook her head ruefully, picking up one of Henry’s stuffed toys from by the door and throwing it at his head. He had no choice but to let it bounce off of him so as not to jostle Henry. 

“Careful not to turn yourself on in front of your son,” she said with a prim sneer before leaving the room, door left wide open in spite.

Bae turned to the sleeping boy next to him, shaking his shoulder gently as he whispered, “Hey, buddy, it’s time to get up. Ready to start the day?”

*

Bae sat on his rock wall, feet dangling comfortably over the edge facing Sherwood. That had been his first small victory. The next had been when he had taken his first few steps cautiously towards the forest. But after several months of small skirmishes in the woods, and much larger battles being fought on Regina’s front, Bae could now walk all the way up to the large oak tree in the middle of the forest. It was a light at the end of the tunnel, he felt. And though he knew they had miles to go, though his father cautiously warned him that wars like this could take decades, he felt optimistic at his progress.

The sounds of fighting raged below, the wild band of Merry Men - and a few of his father’s soldiers - shouting over the sounds of clashing swords and cannon fire. He felt helpless, sitting up here and waiting, but he was doing his part as best he could.

It wasn’t until the noise died down that Bae reached out with his magic, feeling for life. It was a hard spell to control, and he didn’t like the chaotic way the magic flailed in his mind, trying to find a direction to flow when he couldn’t guide it. Bae had used a tracking spell as the base, but without a specific quarry or an object to channel the magic into, the spell could get a little feral at times. Still, the annoying headache it gave him was worth it as he crept down into the woods, following the vague throbbing in his head until he stumbled across a wounded soldier, rips and tears in his black long coat leaking blood through a nasty cut in the man’s side. The kind of wound that would be septic before the soldier reached camp.

Bae knelt down over him, pulling the man’s coat off of him before tearing his shirt open further to get a better look at the lesion. Bae’s stomach churned, he had never been squeamish, but as of late he was seeing more and more he wished he could take back.

“Hey,” he whispered, and the soldier stirred. “What’s your name?”

There was a low mumble from the man, but nothing identifiable as a name. 

“Stay with me, okay?” Bae whispered, reaching out his hands and pressing them against the man’s side. 

The first thing he needed to do was push back the rot, the sweet-smelling sepsis that was already tugging against Bae for the man’s life. Healing magic was hard, it had not come easy to him, and admittedly he had to pull it from a place that wasn’t as pure as he would have liked. He tried to avoid anger and bitterness in his spells, the fuel his father thrived on, but Bae only had so many happy memories to pull from, and they didn’t always match the intent of his spell.

So sometimes he drew from his sadness instead. He drew from the deep wound that had never closed in his heart. From the pain of losing his mother to illness, his father to magic, and his True Love to fate. He pulled all his intentions for this man from those deep losses that he wished he could heal, that he never wanted inflicted on another. 

And slowly the blueish-black edges of the soldier's cut began to fade, turn purple, and then a deep red, settling on the normal rust of fresh blood. Next Bae pressed his hands against the edge of the injury, blood soaking his fingers as it began to seep again with the pressure, the man groaning in pain.

“Almost there,” Bae whispered, pushing more magic into the mangled meat of the man’s side until slowly it began to close, knitting together the same way his father had always darned his socks when he tore them as a boy. He thought of that happy warmth by the fire, even earlier when his mother had still been there to knit for them, and could feel the skin around his hands grown warm as well - not with fever, but with magic.

The soldier groaned, sitting up to look at Bae, dazed as his eyes darted around them. Bae tried not to take in the dead men laying everywhere. He had been too late to save them - dead was dead, after all - but even just this man was one more son who wouldn’t go fatherless, one more wife who wouldn’t be widowed. It was the best Bae could do, and though he so desperately wanted to do more, it was a start.

“Let’s get you back to camp,” Bae suggested, draping the soldier’s tattered coat over his own shoulders before lifting the man to his feet with all his strength. 

They hobbled along, following the carefully hidden markings back to the Merry Men’s camp, alive and bustling with the chaos of war - wounded soldiers being dragged into medical tents, weapons being collected and cleaned, food and supplies being handed out to the returning men not being rushed to the healers. 

“Bae,” called a good-natured voice, as he sat the soldier down on a log around one of the fire pits, “I didn’t know you joined up! Congrats!”

Bae looked up with a grin, pulling one of his old boyhood friends into a one-armed hug as he remembered he was still wearing the coat of the rescued man. “No such luck, I’d be a terrible soldier.”

“Why, you’re a damn good fighter?” his friend asked, offering a piece of bread to the man Bae had rescued before turning his gaze back to Bae. “We’d be lucky to have you.”

“Who wants a soldier that can’t walk past the front line?” Bae laughed, “I’d be useless, unable to enter the battlefield until all the fighting is over. The best I could do was shout encouragement from the sidelines. Go get ‘em boys! I’ll be right over here!”

“Sounds like an officer to me,” the young man laughed, casting a factious nod to the group of men, untouched by battle, standing around a table and circling things on the map. “At least you’d get off your ass and help afterwards with the cleanup.”

Bae nodded, thoughtfully watching the men arguing at the table, their uniforms still pristine and unbloodied. He shook his head to knock loose the delusions of grandeur left over from the magic he’d just performed. He didn’t want glory. There was no time to worry about that when he got closer to Emma every day.

He just wanted to help.

“I’m going to head back out into the woods, see if I can find any more survivors, you keep an eye on him for me?” Bae asked his friend, nodding to the now recovering soldier who was eagerly scarfing down his rations. 

He just wanted to help. And maybe to lead.

*

“I want to enlist.”

“Gods! Baelfire, don’t startle me like that!” Regina said, practically falling off the couch in her chambers, the red wine in her glass spilling across her lap, “Just because you don’t have to use a door doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, watching her get up and stroll over to the table to pour herself another glass. “I want to enlist.”

“Go home little Bae,” she laughed, “Your father would kill me.”

“That’s why I’m not asking him to join his army,” Bae said, tentatively stepping forward, “I’m asking to join yours.”

“What good would you be to me, child, when you can’t even get past the boundary line?”

“I wasn’t a child when you offered to marry me two years ago, and I’m not one now.”

“Yes, showing up in the middle of the night and demanding I let you play soldier really shows the maturity I’m looking for in my troops. My mistake.”

“Don’t patronize me, Regina. That’s why I’m here. I’m tired of being patronized. I’d be an asset to your army and you know it!”

“At best you wouldn't be a hindrance,” she scoffed, “Wine?”

He shook his head no, stepping forward to take her glass out of her hand and set it gently on the table. He wanted her attention on him. 

“I’m a great healer, and an even better sword fighter. I can train my troops in both. And I don’t need to step onto the battlefield, I have enough range with my magic, I can still fight from afar. Besides, what’s better than a man who can tell when a battle is won, before the smoke even clears, just by how many times he can put one foot in front of the other! I’m clever and cunning, and I’m determined to win this. Please, just take a chance on me.”

“You’re not so clever,” she laughed, “What you are is a child who has bitten off more than he can chew. You made this mess, and then daddy cleaned it up for you. I’m not interested in having to play babysitter to an impulsive teenager that has deluded himself into thinking he’s one of the adults. Tell me, Baelfire, how will you make this worth my while? If you’re a deal maker like your father then I need to know what you’ll give me in return?”

He swallowed, “What do you want?”

He looked away with an uncomfortable blush as her eyes drifted downward, taking another step closer to him, her breath brushing against his cheek. “You already knew what I wanted when you came here tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a nervous step backwards and trying not to trip over his feet, “But my heart belongs to someone else.”

“I’m not asking for your heart, Baelfire,” she laughed, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and pulling him towards her as her hand brushed against his thigh.

“Unfortunately,” he muttered uncomfortably, “The two are linked.”

“Then let me help you out with that,” she cackled, her hand lashing out, fast as a viper, nails digging into his chest, like a deep paper cut being pulled apart. He had expected it to hurt, but more like a sharp stab with a blade and not the painfully clear sting of a thin slice. “You want to be a soldier? You think you’re clever? You wouldn’t last a day in my bed, much less on the battlefield. Do you even know who you’re talking to?”

He watched her face fall as she dug her hand deeper into his chest, the pain settling into a low ache as Bae relaxed against her, no longer fighting her off as he replaced his grimace with a grin.

“I mean, you’re probably right; I’d be a terrible lover, but I am clever. And I do know who I’m talking to.”

She yanked her empty hand free from his chest, shaking it for a moment as if in pain, all the while her eyes glued to him in surprise.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“What I had to. Don’t worry, I’ll put it back when I’m done talking to you, there are still people I’d like to share my heart with. But you’re not one of them.”

He took a step forward, watching her shrink away in fear as he reached out, pressing his own hand to her chest. And it wasn’t like it had been with Belle at all. He had to press past her resistance, cramping his wrist, determined to reach his goal despite the way she cringed against his touch. Her heart was smaller than he had expected. It slid freely into his hand as if it hadn’t really wanted to be a part of the Queen anyway. 

“You should probably give this a polish, Regina, I hear they're supposed to be red,” he laughed, holding the little black lump up in front of her wide eyes, as small and dark as a piece of coal. “Don’t ever try to take my heart again, and I’ll never lay a finger on yours, either. But I want  _ you _ to know who  _ you’re _ talking to. And I want to be a soldier.”

She looked at him for a moment, eyes wide in disbelief. Slowly he watched her shock and anger fade to something closer to pride.

“Welcome to the army, Lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant?” he asked, handing over her heart in surprise. “That’s not exactly working my way up from the bottom.”

“I think we both know, Baelfire,” she grumbled as she shoved her heart back into her chest, “that your talents would be wasted at the bottom."


	14. The Only Captain

“Captain!” one of the Queen’s soldiers approached, running along the docks with all the glee of a little boy seeing the sea for the first time. Bae had to admit, the salty ocean breeze and the rhythmic crashing of the waves had his own spirits lifted beyond comparison. He had never thought he’d actually be here, overlooking the ocean, even though he had dreamed about it often as a child. He wished Emma was here to see it too, how she would have loved climbing the rigging and singing with the sailors. He felt closer to her, aboard a ship so full of life, just as she had been. He was getting closer to her, quite literally, every day.

“Yes?” Bae asked, turning to face the soldier at the same time the leather-clad man to his left turned and asked the same question.

“Oh, um… sorry,” The young corporal blushed, “Captain Cassidy, sir.”

Bae ginned smugly at the other man before beckoning his soldier to continue with a twirl of his outstretched hand. 

When he’d first been introduced to Regina’s army she had insisted he pick a last name for his troops to call him by. All the other officers were men of means, second sons of wealthy lords, looking to make their fortunes for themselves. All the other officers had last names because they were from families worth remembering. Regina had sneered at his insistence that he wasn’t ashamed of his roots, that they could call him Baelfire, same as everyone else. She had disagreed.

Cassidy was a term of endearment in his village, one that loosely translated to “clever, curly-haired child” and it was a name his mother had often called him, before she had passed. He had chosen it for the affection attached to it, the positive memories, reminding him even as he took lives in war, that magic only meant something if it came from a good place. That, and he thought it fit him well. Though he no longer sported his messy curls, favoring a shorter cut for the convenience of his helmet, he was still clever.

Captain Cassidy. It had a nice ring to it. It would be a shame to give that up when he got his next promotion. Major Cassidy didn’t sound as good. Then again, Colonel Cassidy did.

“We’re ready to set sail, sir,” the soldier announced with a giddy grin, “Just waiting for you to give the word… Are you sure you don’t want to be on our boat?”

“I’ll be on both,” Bae assured him with a pat on the shoulder.

“Right, I forgot you can do that,” The boy whispered, his eyes cast down to Bae’s boots, waiting to be dismissed. Bae waved him away, laughing as the young boy sprinted back towards the Queen’s waiting vessel. 

“You know,” Bae said, turning back to the pirate in black leather and silver jewels, fussing with the ropes to his left. “I’m the only man they’re ever going to call Captain.”

The pirate grinned a roguish smirk, tossing the coil of rope he’d been fussing with over his shoulder as he stood to his full height, a few inches above Bae, and said, “You know, aboard my ship, my men aren’t going to care how many shiny medals you have, boy, I’m the only Captain.”

They glared at each other for a moment, cocky bastard assessing arrogant ass, before the pirate - Captain Jones - swept his arms wide, indicating Bae should climb the wooden plank leading onto the ship. 

It was a sight better than Bae could have imagined it as a boy, he had to fight his toothy grin from breaking through the mask of indifference he wore as an officer, not wanting the pirate crew to see just how excited he was to set sail. These were pirates. Real, live, pirates. Hook hands and peg legs, dripping in stolen jewelry and singing songs as they hauled in the ropes, preparing for the journey ahead. 

“Everyone!” Captain Jones called, far less dignified than Bae would have ever dreamed of addressing his men, “I want you to meet  _ Captain _ Cassidy. Cassidy, meet my crew!”

“Bae?” he heard a startled whisper, somewhere near the helm of the boat, his eyes falling on the curly haired woman standing at the wheel. She was tall, with coffee brown curls and stormy grey eyes that tinted to green just around the irises, a necklace of polished amber shining brightly around her long neck. 

“Ah, yes, love, I wasn’t forgetting about you,” Captain Jones said, pulling the woman into a quick kiss, all the while her eyes never left Bae. “Cassidy, meet my first mate, Milah.”

“Mom?” Bae whispered.

*

“I’m not leaving Henry for three months, it’s out of the question,” Bae had argued, his helmet on the table as he paced around Regina’s chambers, the soft shuffle of his leather uniform the only noise as she painted her nails a dark red. “You’ll have to ask another officer, Regina, I’m not going.”

“It has to be you, Baelfire,” she sighed, “I don’t trust the rest of my men.”

That was a fair point. 

“You don’t trust anyone, Regina, unless you’re holding their heart in your hand. Force one of your other pretty boys to do it, it’s not going to be me.”

“Pretty?” she laughed, blowing lightly at her nails as he collapsed into the chair across from her. “Feeling full of ourselves today, are we, Baelfire? I’m being generous when I say you’re scruffy on a good day. It’s already decided, I’ve reached out to my contact, and I’ve let him know that we’d like him to escort our ship on this little expedition. That I’m sending my best Captain.”

“I’m not…”

“Congratulations on your promotion.”

“I’m still not leaving Henry.”

“Relax, that’s why I’m sending you,” she sighed, “You’re the only one who can pop back and forth when I need them. And I’ll be sending you with one of your father’s magic mirrors, that way Henry - and I - can keep in touch with you. How is your father, by the way?”

Still sore about Bae’s decision to run off and join Regina’s army. There was plenty of yelling to be heard when the topic came up. But at twenty-five, it was well within Bae’s right to leave the nest and make a name for himself. Besides, his father had Belle to keep him company. And it wasn’t like Bae had moved out, he still popped back and forth, between his troops and his son, one of the best uses of magic he could have never anticipated. 

“He’s as dodgy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, just like always,” Bae mumbled. “What am I picking up for you, on this expedition?”

“Well, you do not waste any time getting to the point, do you?” she laughed, reaching across the table and taking his hand, blood red nails pressing just a little too hard into the soft skin of his palm. “You know, there’s a saying about apples and trees that I’ve always been fond of, but you kind of defy that one, don’t you?”

“Regina,” he warned. 

“Right, well it’s a standard supply trip. The Charmings have made it more difficult to import things by land, and so I’m going by sea.”

“Except you wouldn’t need me if it was a standard supply trip. What else am I picking up?”

“A little of this, a little of that,” she grinned.

“The longer you drag this out the more suspicious I get.”

“I’m sending you to an island where magical things are not uncommon. The pirate I’ve arranged to guide you is an expert on procuring magical supplies for a price. He’s also well versed in a secret of the island, a plant known as Dreamshade. It produces a poison so strong it is said to kill demons and so incurable that it never leaves a man alive once it’s entered his system. I’d like a cutting of it, to add to my garden.”

“No,” Bae said, standing and grabbing his helmet, “I’ll not help you poison your enemies, Regina. We fight a clean war or it’s not worth fighting.”

She pouted. “I wouldn’t even know about the plant if the Charmings hadn’t used it against my men in the last war! I’m not playing dirty, I’m leveling the playing field!”

“No.”

“Bae, something like this could end the war faster. Get you back to Emma in years instead of decades! Your father might be immortal, but the rest of us aren’t. Please, let the pirate show you the plant. Decide for yourself once you’re there.”

“I’ve decided now, and I won’t change my mind.”

“Fine, but I’ll need the rest of the supplies from the expedition and I’d still like you to go along anyway.”

“Why?”

“Simple, dear, I don’t trust the pirate.”

*

Bae glared at his mother across the table while she fussed over his hands, grasped firmly in hers. He couldn’t even bear to look at her.

“My clever boy,” she cooed, “You’ve grown so much! How long has it been.”

“Twenty years,” Bae hissed, “Since you died.”

“You can’t be mad at me for that,” she said with a shake of her head, still stroking his hand, “I didn't make up that lie, your father did.”

“No, you just left us. For a pirate.”

“For an adventure!” She corrected, throwing her hands up in the air. “I wasn’t meant to be a spinner’s wife, Bae! I could hardly take it before your father’s injury, but after it just became unbearable.”

“You mean after I was born?”

“What? No!” She said, but she looked away too quickly.

“Papa was injured right around when I was born,” he glared, picking at the plate of food in front of him, but his stomach was too upset from seasickness and his mother to actually eat anything. “Why?”

She looked at him confused, playing with her necklace as Captain Jones slid next to her at the table, his cheesy grin, which had already been pretty punchable before Bae found out the man was screwing his mother, almost unbearable now. “Drinks?”

“Yes, please,” Bae and Milah answered in unison, both reaching for the silver tankards the pirate had sat down on the table, downing a few sips in uncomfortable silence. 

“Killian, look at my beautiful boy!” she exclaimed, the pirate seeming very uninterested in the command. “He looks just like me, don’t you think?”

“Milah, your boy is a man,” Captain Jones corrected into his tankard of ale, “I’m sure he’s not interested in your attentions right now. Isn’t that right,  _ Captain _ Cassidy?”

“Why did you do it?” Bae asked, startling Milah out of her fussing over the pirate at her side and bringing her eyes to rest gently on the stranger that was her son in front of her. 

“It’s alright, love, tell him honestly,” Captain Jones coaxed. “He’s a little old for sugar-coated lies.”

“I didn’t leave you, Bae, I left your father. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. He was… he was a coward, and weak, and… boring.”

If only she could see him now. The man who had traded his soul to keep his son safe. The man who brokered deals with monarchs, traded in lives and gold like wool and livestock. Bae loved the side of his father that read bedtime stories to Henry. He longed for the days of safety when the two of them sat around the fire laughing across a spinning wheel. And she had said it was boring.

“Women love a man who will fight for them,” Killian said, wrapping his arm around Bae’s mother like a snake coiling around a dying animal. “No matter what it takes.”

“Not that he needs to tell you that, my brave boy. My soldier boy,” she crooned, taking Bae’s hands again, and out of pity he let her. “The truth is, Bae, your father never fought for me. He gave up as soon as things were difficult. But Killian, well, he would do anything to be by my side.”

*

Bae had thought after a month of sporadic visits aboard the pirate’s ship that the greasy Captain would have grown on him. But he had no such luck. 

Still, he kept his cool, and his distance, in the name of being professional. Despite the awkward family reunion, he was here as an ambassador to the Queen. 

He spent a few weeks trekking all across the island with his troops and the crew of pirates, bottling giant squid ink and collecting summoning shells, filling the Queen’s orders like a glorified errand boy, avoiding Killian Jones whenever he could. But it was hard when Killian Jones was the only one who knew anything about the island.

One day, while walking across a rock ledge, just the two of them out gathering pixie dust, the pirate reached out a hand, unexpectedly pulling Bae back. “Don’t touch that, mate!”

Bae stopped, taking in the thorny vines, so deep in pigment that the green almost seemed to glitter black in the afternoon sun. They twisted and tangled across the rock, climbing higher and higher into the sky, so thorny and thick Bae wondered if he would just be better off teleporting himself to the other side of the ledge.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked, shielding his eyes with his hand as he took in the sight of the poisonous plant.

“Dreamshade? Aye, that it is. And it’s not a quick death, either. Once it’s in you, it’s in for good, rotting your own blood until it curdles in your heart. One prick and you might as well start saying your goodbyes to your loved ones. Or to the wenches at the tavern, depending on the kind of man you are.”

“How do you know so much about it?” Bae wondered, watching his footing as he shuffled along next to Killian, careful not to brush against the plant.

“King James paid my brother and me loads to export the stuff back to him during the first war. It seemed like a good gig. The King told us it was an antidote. That he and his precious Queen Snow were going to use it to heal their men. We thought we were doing something noble and we were too young and stupid to question it.”

“When did you find out they lied to you?”

“It was my brother’s third trip. My first. I don’t know why I thought to question it - but I did and I shouldn't have. He was trying to prove to me that we could take The Charmings at their word, said the vine was harmless and pricked himself with it. Turns out we couldn’t. Take them at their word, that is.”

“I’ve heard it’s the most incurable poison.”

“Nah,” Killian sighed, “The water at its roots will cure it’s venom. Found that out too late to save me brother, though.”

Bae nodded, stopping to catch his breath at the edge of the cliff, finally out of the way of the hateful plant’s prickly vines. The two looked out at the ocean together, watching the waves crash along the island's beaches. Bea knew what it felt like to be young and stupid and willing to take the Charmings at their word.

“He was the last good man I knew,” Killian nodded, his gaze lost somewhere over the horizon. “Taught me it wasn’t important to be a good man. It was important to be a smart man.”

“My papa sold his soul to keep me from fighting in that stupid war, and now we’re fighting it all over again because of me,” Bae sighed. “He thought he’d found a way to cheat fate and save his son. But magic isn’t the answer. Magic is just another word for fate. And it brought us right back to where we were supposed to be.”

“You can’t cheat fate, son,” the pirate laughed, “But you can cheat good men out of their money, and that’s always been plenty good enough for me.”

“And their wives?” Bea added curiously.

The pirate shrugged before turning to continue his trek up the rocky mountainside.

“You know,” Bae called after him, “My papa is a better man than you.”

The pirate offered him a lopsided smile over his shoulder in return. “Your mom doesn’t seem to think so. I might be an ass and a cheat, but I’ve got a woman in me bed every night because of it. Don’t make the same mistakes your father did, Cassidy. Be a fighter, not a lover. You coming?”

“In a moment,” Bae mumbled, waiting until the pirate was out of sight before creeping back to the thorns that sprawled across the cliff. He snapped his fingers, conjuring a little black box and a pair of silver scissors, careful to watch the skin on his hands as he clipped a couple inches from the vine, watching it leak a purple fluid as he dropped the cutting in the box.

After tucking it away in his coat pocket he summoned a glass vial, filling it quickly with the waters flowing under the plant’s roots and slipping that in his coat pocket as well.

Because Regina might not have trusted the pirate. But Bae didn’t trust Regina. 

Bae thought a lot about his father on the journey home. On the lessons the spinner had tried to teach him. On the importance of commitment, and keeping your word, and patience. He thought a lot about the man his father had hoped he would grow into, and a lot about the man he wanted to be. And because he was his father’s son - and try as much as he and his father might, the apple never did fall far - he made a few deals along the way. 

“No hard feelings,  _ Captain _ Cassidy,” Killian laughed as he waved Bae and his troops off at the docks, the pirate’s hand resting uncomfortably on Milah’s ass.

“You mean about how you stole a woman away from her husband and child?” Bae spit, his magic bubbling up inside him, for the first time in his life fueled by the same rage he knew his father drew upon. And it was strong. Much stronger than his regular magic. And wild. And free.

And oh, so very addictive.

He hadn’t meant to, but Killian let out a scream of pain, bringing his arm up to his chest, blood spilling freely from it.

“Are you mental?” The pirate yelled.

“No,” Bae hissed, turning to walk back down to the docks, “But my papa always taught me, a thief deserves to lose his hand, _Captain_ _Hook_.”

*

“I brought you a present,” Bae said, appearing in Regina’s chambers in a cloud of smoke, tossing the little black box onto the coffee table in front of her and throwing himself down on the couch across from her, his arms stretched across the top of the furniture, his legs crossed at the knee. 

“Is it mother’s day already?”

“Oh, just shut up and take it,” he chuckled, picking up the bottle of wine from the table and pouring himself a glass. He just assumed Regina’s invitation to drink with her was always open.

She feigned surprise at him, her smile frisky as she chuckled, “Maybe I was wrong, Baelfire, maybe you would be good in bed.”

He sipped his wine, waiting for her to open the little box, her smile shifting from forced to genuine as her eyes fell upon the cutting of Dreamshade inside. 

“You did good, Captain.”

“I did great,” he corrected, lifting the glass to his lips to sip at the intoxicating red liquid, dark and rich like the Queen that was drinking it with him.

“Stop flirting with me, dear, I might just get the wrong idea. I do so love a man with hair on his chest.”

He looked down, realizing he was still wearing the dark linen shirt he had come to favor aboard the pirate’s ship. He didn’t care much for the way it looked on him, but it was loose and comfortable. And of course, when he didn’t lace it, open all the way down to the base of his sternum. 

“You know,” Regina said, sipping her own wine, “You’re starting to look like him.”

“The pirate? Yeah, right.”

“No. Your father.”

That made him uncomfortable because he had never seen it. He was taller than his father, stockier in frame. They had the same brown hair and grey eyes, but that was where their shared features stopped.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” He said, changing the subject quickly in discomfort. “You have a navy now.”

“A what?”

“A navy. A branch of the military that can carry out your whims at sea.”

“And how did you manage that?”

“My mother owes me a favor, and my new stepfather, who runs the pirate fleet headed by the Jolly Roger, well lets just say he could… use a hand… in managing the ships.”

“No, really, Baelfire, how did you manage that?”

He shrugged. “We aren’t the only ones who hate the Charmings.”

She thought about it for a moment, both of them sipping their wine in silence.

“That gives me an idea,” she whispered, looking up at him with those midnight black eyes that scared the soul out of Bae sometimes. “How would you like to meet a dragon?”


	15. The Deranged Dragon

“Knock, knock!” Bae called, his torch outstretched as he looked around the grand entrance hall of the abandoned castle, now decrepit from age and disuse. 

He stepped carefully around the piles of silver, his own bag of coins tucked carefully in his pocket to add as tribute. Apparently, every dragon horde was different, and it was always best to come prepared for the specific ones you were looking for. So Bae had packed coins and a few pieces of jewelry, and tried very hard not to think about the bright silver of his sword and shield. And Helmet. Technically they were made of polished steel, but he didn’t trust the dragon to care about the semantics of it all. That’s why he had left everything except the sheathed sword at the door, he didn’t want to look like a corpse worth adding to her silver collection.

“Who’s there?” he called out into the empty cavern of the castle, each footstep kicking up a cloud of dust as he pressed forward, hoping he had the right abandoned castle atop the mountain where the tree burned forever. They were pretty specific directions, to be honest, he doubted he could have messed them up. 

There was a clattering to his left and he turned, torch braced like a sword in front of him, only to see that a small rat had scurried across one of the piles of silver, knocking a chalice loose as it rattled to the floor. He wasn’t afraid.

Really.

He wasn’t.

Actually he was kind of excited. He and Emma had always read about dragons in their younger days, he had even pretended to be one, carrying her off to far away lands to have and to horde and to ravish. He was warmed by the thought of her giggles as she had teased him. 

_ “Baelfire, I don’t think that’s what they mean when they say the dragon eats the princess.” _

_ “Do you want me to stop?” _

_ “Dear gods, no!” _

“It’s Baelfire Cassidy,” he answered his own echo, his voice trembling with nerves as he entered an old sitting room. A small fire flickered in the fireplace and cast everything in eerie shadows as he sat down his torch and began to poke around. This room looked the most used out of the rest he had explored in the castle, the furniture worn and the table stacked with dishes and quite a lot of empty wine glasses, food and drink crusted to them and the sweet smell of something rotten floated in the air. Did dragons like wine?

“You know, the joke doesn’t work as well when it’s only me telling it,” he called, lifting an old book from the end table and noting the lack of dust surrounding it. There was definitely someone living here, someone who had been here to light the fire this morning. But he wasn’t sure it was a dragon. “This is the part where you’re supposed to say ‘Baelfire Cassidy, who?’”

He turned, almost bumping into the woman who stood towering over him, glaring down on him with a hatred normally reserved for generational blood feuds and warring religions.

“Unless the punchline is “Baelfire Cassidy, your next meal” I suggest you run along little knight.”

He nodded, taking a confident step back so that he couldn’t feel her too-warm breath on his face, putting on his best charming smile, and opening his arms wide as if to hug her. 

She looked deranged. Bae did not use that word lightly - after all, he spent a good amount of time bouncing between the castles of The Evil Queen and The Dark One, so he was no stranger to the magic-warped and slightly insane. But this woman was not a pretty picture.

She had copious amounts of frizzy blonde hair stacked atop her head, pinned loosely out of her way with no regard for appearance or style, instead letting it tangle and knot where it pleased. Her eyes were too light a blue to be beautiful like Emma and Belle’s, instead startling in their clarity and piercing nature. Her clothes hung on her frame as if meant for a larger woman - even though she was towering over Bae, she was stick thin and bony - the black fabric frayed and torn.

She was not a pretty picture; but she also wasn’t a dragon.

“No, the punchline is actually, ‘Who cares - the Queen sent him’,” he corrected, letting his hand fall gently to the pommel of his sword, fingertips twitching at the grip, just in case.

“Which Queen?” The woman asked, stepping back into his personal space again, and he knew it was supposed to be intimidating, but it was actually just kind of annoying. 

“Right. Regina. I don’t work for the Charmings.”

He wanted that to be made very clear. 

The woman huffed, breathing in his scent as Bae raised his eyebrows in confusion, doing his best not to flinch away from her as she ran a long, pointed fingernail down his cheek. Still, his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, because the magic radiating off her touch - the kind of magic that just tended to surround powerful beings like his father, like vultures circling a dying animal - was a little dizzying and it was making him nauseous. 

Finally, seeming to have her fill with assessing him, she threw herself down into one of the threadbare armchairs, the fabric of her dress engulfing the furniture so it looked as if she might be floating. “What does Regina want?”

Bae looked around the room cautiously, as if he might catch a glimpse of a folded wing or a scaly tail if he just kept looking.

“Actually, she sent me here to speak to Maleficent.”

“Well you’re doing a great job of it so far, keep going, little knight.”

“Oh,” he said, scratching at the whiskers on his chin for a moment, “Aren’t you supposed to be a dragon?”

“When I want to be,” she glared, tapping her nails against the arm of her chair impatiently. “You better hope I don’t want to be.”

“Right,” he said, sitting down slowly in the chair across from her and trying not to cough at the cloud of dust that exploded from the cushion. “Well I’m here with a proposition.”

She glared at him coldly.

“See, in a normal circumstance, you would then ask me ‘what’s the proposition?’ That’s how a conversation works. I say something. Then you say something. We go back and forth like that for a while.”

She continued to glare.

“Okay, well it’s a good thing I’ve got plenty of practice doing all the talking for two people. I’m annoying like that. So I’ll tell you. Regina is amassing an army. She thinks you might be a wonderful addition. What with the whole ‘claws as long as swords and breath made of hellfire’ thing,” Bae continued leaning forward in his seat to rest his elbows on his knees. 

“Regina is right. I would be a wonderful addition. But I have no interest in fighting wars for monarchs I’ve never met. No interest in getting involved in the petty squabbles of mortals with whom I owe nothing. I might be a wonderful addition to Regina’s army. I might also be a wonderful addition to her enemies’. At least they didn’t send an annoying knight to bother me in my home.”

Home was a bit of a stretch, Bae thought. Maybe lair? 

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said, pointing a finger in her direction. “I don’t think you’d like to fight for her enemies very much. She’s fighting the Charmings.”

The woman laughed, without a trace of mirth. Bae had never seen someone laugh through a frown before, and it was quite unsettling. 

“What do you know of my feud with the Charmings?”

“I know it can’t be a very active feud, since you’re up here sulking, while us petty mortals actually do something about the wrongs they’ve caused.”

They both paused, looking at each other long and hard, as if to see who would blink first.

“The pain they’ve caused me is not petty. But it is as deep as a knife wound, and just as debilitating. Torching their kingdom will not bring back what they’ve stolen.”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of fun,” Bae smiled. “What did they do to you?”

But she was back to silently glaring at him across the darkened castle sitting room.

“They took a lot from me, too,” he offered, hoping to sound comforting, though he didn’t know exactly what tone of voice might be considered comforting to a dragon. “They took my love. And they took my freedom. And they took my son.”

Her head tilted up very slightly. “Your son?”

“Yeah,” Bae smiled, always eager to talk about Henry, “They robbed me of his birth. Of the first four years of his life. If my papa hadn’t fought so hard, if I hadn’t held onto my hope, I might never have gotten him back.”

She scoffed, “I never got my child back. I doubt I ever will. But who cares, right? The Charmings didn’t. A dragon egg is not a child, they reasoned, as they stole my baby from under my wing.”

“I think you’ll find that they’ve stolen a lot of love, from a lot of people,” Bae said. “Growing up a poor boy in their kingdom, I was taught that the Charmings were beacons of True Love. That they had so much of it, for each other and for their people. I know now it is because they have stolen it from others. They keep their own daughter locked away, unable to choose for herself the path she wishes to walk, more a prisoner than a princess. She’s as repressed as the people they dupe into following them. And I, for one, don’t plan to stand for it. You shouldn’t either.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I will fight, little knight, but not for the Queen. I will fight for you. And your son.”

“That’s all well and good,” Bae chuckled, “But I don’t actually have an army for you to be part of.”

“Then find one,” she hissed.

Well, back to the drawing board.

“Okay,” he said, standing up and retrieving his torch from where he had sat it. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I won’t be holding my breath.”

He paused as he was about to exit the room, turning back to the woman still draped in the chair. 

“Can you really turn into a dragon?”

She nodded, “Yes. Why? Do you not believe me?”

“No,” he assured her quickly, “I do. I do. It’s just… and I mean this in a completely non-sexual way… It’s just that I’ve always wanted to ride a dragon.”

And for the first time he saw the tiniest hint of a smile on her lips. 


	16. The Merry Men

Bae smiled as Henry twirled his wooden sword over his shoulder, rocking back and forth menacingly on his quick feet. Henry had always been an active kid, bursting with energy and enthusiasm, and he brought that to his fighting style. The impressive twists and turns of the blade were exactly the kind of bragging showmanship that Bae had favored in his younger days, and wouldn’t dream of wasting time with now. A neat trick, intimidating when dueling noble’s sons, but useless in real war.

“Are you going to fight me, or just show off all morning,” Bae goaded, tapping the tip of his own wooden sword on his boot, smiling proudly at his son, who grew more and more into a tiny version of his father each day. Belle had managed to drag a comb through Henry’s hair this morning, removing most of the tangles and curls, but his mischievous grin and stormy grey eyes left no doubt about which impulsive shepherd he belonged to. 

“I’m just biding my time!” Henry yelled back, another twist of the wooden sword, this time he fumbled it, having to catch it by the blade before correcting his grip on the hilt again. And that was why they were using wooden swords. Bae’s father hadn’t bothered with the kid gloves, and he’d ended up with more than one scar because of it, but Henry was much younger than Bae had been, and also, much more sheltered. 

“Well quit biding before I get bored and go find a real soldier to fight!” Bae laughed.

Henry lunged forward, putting way too much energy into his initial attack, and Bae was able to deflect the blade with a flick of his wrist. 

“Don’t tire yourself out, now,” he joked as Henry stepped back, taking a moment to make sure his hands were still in the correct placement after the jolt of his father’s sword.

His son stepped forward again, both bringing their swords to meet between them, Bae having to restrain himself as Henry pushed with all his might, trying to force his father back. It wasn’t really fair, he would have been successful, had Bae not been two feet taller and three times his weight. 

Frustrated, Henry brought his foot up, kicking at Bae’s shins until the larger man was forced to break the contact of their blades, retreating backwards a few steps.

“Hey, now, that’s not very sportsman-like,” he joked, though he could hardly feel it through the padded leather he wore. 

“Sportsmanship only counts when you have money or morals,” Henry retorted, “A soldier has neither.”

He lunged forward, Bae sidestepping the little wooden sword and taking a swing with his own. Henry ducked under the wooden blade, leaning to the left. With his free hand, Bae reached out and smacked him on the back of the head, causing Henry to glare. 

“A _good_ soldier has both,” Bae corrected, raising his arm to deflect the next two-handed blow Henry brought down on him, hard enough to bruise the skin under the loose linen shirt Bae was wearing instead of his soldier’s leathers on his day off. With a resigned sigh he tucked the sore arm behind his back, no longer allowed to use it in their fight. Those were Henry’s rules - once the sword hit you, you had lost that limb. Bae didn’t have the heart to tell him that many soldiers had to fight with injured limbs, pushing past the pain for a chance at survival.

Henry charged again, slashing with his sword as Bae deflected, blow after blow, with his. They danced around the little yard where they had once hunted for grasshoppers, Bae smirking with pride at how fast his son was picking up the skill. No man wanted to be bested in combat, but if Bae had to meet his match some day, he wanted it to be his son. 

Frustrated at his lack of progress as he had to duck under another of Bae’s sword slashes, Henry kicked out again, this time higher, and Bae caught his foot with his free hand, tugging it out from underneath him.

Henry landed flat on his ass, glaring up at Bae with that grumpy face that reminded Bae so much of Emma when she didn’t get her way.

“And that’s why we don’t do that,” he laughed, “Kick me again and I’ll show you how a real soldier would handle it.”

“Another round?” Henry asked, dusting himself off as he got back to his feet, picking up his wooden blade and raising it in challenge.

“I wish, son, but unfortunately I’ve got business to attend to,” Bae sighed as he checked the little silver pocket watch that Regina had given him for his last birthday. A constant reminder of the time they were losing every day he dawdled on procuring Maleficent’s army. A likeness of Emma etched into the inside of the case as motivation. “Why don’t you go grab some lunch and we’ll have another go when I get back?”

“Can I go with you?” Henry asked, and it tugged on Bae’s heart. He didn’t like being away from his son any more than he had to, their time together the happiest part of Bae’s life, like one single ray of sunshine cutting through a sky of dark clouds. 

“Sure,” he said with a thoughtful nod, unrolling his sleeves and buttoning the cuffs again, setting down his wooden sword to replace it with his real one, clipped to his belt. 

“Really?” Henry asked, overjoyed. “Are you going to do that magic thing? Please, papa! It looks like so much fun!”

“Not today,” Bae laughed. “Today we can just walk.”

“But walking is boring,” Henry pouted.

“Walking is safe,” Bae corrected, wrapping an arm around his son’s shoulder as he led them away from the castle.

*

“Roland, my man, how’s it hanging?” Bae said, slapping the hand of the lanky teen in forest greens, brown hair pulled back into a loose tail, dagger fastened securely to his hip. 

“A little to the left,” the boy laughed, clasping hands with Bae and pulling him into a hug. “Are you here for more news? I’ve heard you’ve got better ways of getting it these days.”

“Naw, but I’m all ears if you got some,” Bae said, while Henry stared up at them both transfixed by being in the middle of a soldier’s camp. 

“I haven’t asked her yet,” Roland confided. “But soon. Thanks for the ring, Bae, it’s beautiful. Beats the hell out of an old adventure book.”

“Don’t underestimate the value of a good book,” Bae corrected, squeezing Henry’s shoulder tight, “I never gave his mother a ring, but we sure did read plenty of books.”

The two older men laughed and Henry tried to chuckle along even though he didn’t get the joke. 

“Actually,” Bae continued, “I’m here to speak to your dad, he around?”

Roland gave a casual nod over his shoulder, to where an older gentleman with sandy blonde hair and a green hood was busy gathering stones to be spalled into arrowheads later.

“Thanks,” Bae said, “Would you mind watching Henry for a bit while I talk to him?”

Roland nodded, looking down at the little boy for the first time. “You know how to use a sword?”

“Only a wooden one,” Henry answered honestly. “But I’m willing to try a real one.”

“Of course he is. Don’t give him a real one,” Bae called after the boys as they walked over to the Merry Men’s armory to pick out sparring weapons. “And no kicking!”

Once he was satisfied with the wooden staffs that Roland had picked out, watching the two begin to laugh and spar, he turned his attention back to the man he had come to see. 

“Robin!” he called as he approached, met only by a skeptical glance upwards before Robin went back to picking up stones. “Remember me?”

“Spawn of The Dark One, bad influence on my son, what are you doing here?” Robin asked, slipping another rock into his pocket before standing with his hands on his hips to glare at Bae.

“I was never a bad influence,” Bae chuckled, “I gave him some books and some brotherly advice every now and then. I’d say the boy is better, having had known me.”

Robin scoffed. “And what was your latest advice? That at fifteen he’s ready to make an honest woman out of his girlfriend?”

“I mean, you are a band of thieves - I’d not say honest…”

“Why are you here Bae? Or should I call you Colonel Cassidy? Or is it just The Black Knight now? You go through so many names I can’t keep up.”

“Bae is fine,” he said, with a grimace, moving around the campfire to try and stay in Robin’s line of sight as the older man continued to forage. “I need an army, Robin.”

“And I need a smarter son and a beautiful woman who isn’t afraid of a bad reputation. But I don’t see either of those things happening anytime soon.”

“I’m serious, Robin. I need a band of men who will swear fealty to me. Not Regina. Not my father. I need my own army.”

“I can offer you a tenth of a small army at best. If I was interested. Which I’m not.”

“Please, Robin, it’s for a good and noble cause.”

“That’s what they all say, Bae. The Charmings are fighting to defend their people. Regina is fighting to create a better world for her son. Everyone thinks they’re the hero; stop deluding yourself. My men don’t pretend to be good, and we don’t care much for the nobles either. It’s part of the mantra - robbing the rich and all.”

“And giving to the poor!” Bae insisted, “The most noble of causes if I’ve ever heard one!”

“Except for these days, Bae, we _are_ the poor.”

“I can fix that.”

“You always have thought you’ve got an answer for everything. I remember when your father first brought you here, naive and incompetent, and I said, ‘now there’s a boy who is going to get himself killed before he hits twenty.’”

“I didn’t though,” Bae said with a grin.

“My new bet is on thirty,” Robin mumbled, continuing to move around the camp, as if hoping Bae would eventually tire of following him and give up. Bae seldom tired of anything though, and giving up was not a skill he had ever developed. 

“Robin, there are no better fighters than your men. You’ve held Sherwood for yourselves for longer than I’ve been alive. You’re crafty and stubborn, which is exactly the kind of men I want in my army.”

Robin stopped his movement, turning to face Bae so suddenly that they almost bumped into each other, Bae having to take a few steps back so as to not be pressed against the thief's chest. “We’ve held this forest for so long because we’ve been smart enough not to get involved in the affairs of others. Regina’s men pass through - we rob them. The Charmings men pass through - we rob them. We’re impartial, and it’s what keeps us alive. No one in Sherwood is fighting for a noble cause, Bae, we’re fighting to survive.”

“And how many of your men have I helped survive?” Bae reminded him gently. “When the war began again, when the Charmings sought to push you off their land, how many men did I heal? Twenty? Thirty? You’re a small group, Robin, I’d say I’ve helped over half of you, some more than once.”

Robin scratched at his chin, annoyance on his furrowed brow as Bae begged in front of him. “They’re your family, Robin, and I wouldn’t be asking you to risk their lives if it weren’t for _my_ family. You know that, right?”

“I know you _think_ that,” Robin said, turning to watch where Henry and Roland continued to spar. Roland was taller and older, but it was clear even from a distance that Henry was the better fighter. Bae had trained him well. Never would his son be forced to do anything he didn’t want to. Henry would bow to neither king nor fate.

Roland wrestled the wooden walking staff out of his hands, laughing as he held it aloft above the little boy’s head. Bae could see the urge to kick rise up in his son, but instead Henry laughed too, throwing a joke and a charming smile until Roland relented and handed back the staff, getting out of the situation the same way Bae always had. A good control of your sword was important, a good control of your temper was more so. 

“I won’t force them to,” Robin finally sighed. “But you may ask them. We’ll take a vote. If my men wish to offer you support, then support we will offer. You likable bastard, you better hope you can smile your way into their hearts the way you have everyone else's. But I have two conditions I want met.”

“Are you asking to make a deal?” Bae laughed, eyebrows arched in humor. “I thought you didn’t approve of my father’s demon deals.”

“I’m asking for your word and nothing more. Because if I can’t trust your word then this is all pointless anyway.”

“Okay,” Bae nodded, “You have my word, what are your conditions?”

“First, Roland will not fight. He will stay back with your son, in employ of your father. I want him as far away from this war as Henry, and I want him making an honest living for himself while I’m gone.”

“That’s doable,” Bae nodded for him to go on. “And?”

“And Second: you and I are leaders, we are warriors, but we are not kings. We will not force a man to fight who doesn’t want to, and we will not kill a man alive until he has been given a choice. Can we agree, those are the tenets with which we will lead our army: brotherhood and freedom of choice?”

Those tenets sounded very good to Bae.


	17. The Bad Guys

Bae closed the door to his room quietly, so as not to wake up anyone else, going over to his bookshelf for his bag of healer’s supplies. He didn’t need it much anymore, magic having replaced most of what was inside, but there were still nights like tonight where he knew if he started drawing upon the intoxicating force he might do something rash. Too many emotions bubbling close to the surface through his fatigue for him to trust his ability to latch onto a good one. Then again, in the heat of battle, there wasn’t always time anyway. Bae’s days of picking and choosing where his magic came from were long behind him, but on nights like tonight - the image of Henry sleeping soundly as he kissed him goodnight still firmly in his head - he would avoid using magic if he could.

He winced, pulling his left arm closer to his chest and gripping the bag in his teeth. Bae used his good hand to grab a nearby bench and drag it over to the mirror where he could settle with a groan, his knees pressed against the glass, his tired feet finally relaxing with the rest.

Undoing the buttons on his shirt sleeves was a bit of a hassle, particularly the ones on his right arm, but he managed, giving the string around his neck a little tug to loosen it before struggling to lift the shirt over his head - and when that failed, to simply wiggle free of the soft linen - before assessing the damage in the mirror.

It wasn’t that bad, deep enough that it would need a stitch or two, but the cut itself hadn’t severed anything important, blood starting to clot around the edge of the gash. Bae wished it hadn’t, he was going to have to break the scabs back open to clean it properly. His soldiers all assumed because he had considerably more magic than most that he was near invincible, couldn’t feel pain, and had an easy answer to all his wounds. Bae didn’t tell them he’d rather reopen a cut, rather drive a needle through his skin, rather favor a sore arm for a few days than draw on the raw chaotic and often just as painful energy that fueled his rapid healing process.

When he had the luxury of waiting to heal like he did this week, he would choose good old fashioned medicine over magic any day. 

Opening the healing bag, he dug out a cloth, pouring a heavy amount of alcohol onto the rag before beginning to scrub at the skin around the wound until there was nothing but the raw pink of torn skin. With a sigh he dug the needle out next, fumbling with it as best he could with his left arm hurting so badly. 

“You’re up late.”

He turned halfway around to see Belle leaning in the doorway, smiling fondly at him as she entered the room, taking the thread and needle out of his hand and doing it herself, looking softly at the rip in his shoulder, clucking to herself as she began to poke and prod at it with her fingers to find the right spot for driving the needle in.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, letting his eyes drift closed in contentment, happy to rest for a while. At least until the council meeting tomorrow, when he would have to put on his brave face and pretend like his body and heart didn’t ache so much. 

“Does it hurt?”

“Immensely,” he winced, startled as she began to stitch, the slight prick numbed at least by the alcohol he had poured on before. 

He closed his eyes again as she worked, feeling the skin pull tight a lot stronger than he felt the prick of her needle after a while.

“Do I want to know how you got this?”

“How does a soldier come across any of his wounds?”

She paused, finishing her last stitch and looking at him thoughtfully.

“What?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter and turning his head to inspect her handy work.

“Do you ever wonder,” she began to ask, ripping the end of the loose thread between her teeth before setting her chin on his good shoulder, “if we’re the bad guys?”

“What?” he laughed, pushing a lock of her hair out of his face.

“I mean, look at us Bae, after all we’ve been through, do you ever wonder if we’re the villains?” she whispered, turning his head gently away from her to face the mirror again.

And he did look at them. Really looked at them. No longer recognizable as the frightened princess and the lonely shepherd - those children replaced by a man and woman that were completely new.

Belle, now doing her best to look after the children and refugees that the Merry Men had left behind in Sherwood no longer wore her chocolate curls freely, but tied back with a scarf, creating a much harsher profile. The baby fat of her youth had melted away to cheekbones so sharp they could cut better than the dagger she wore tied to her hip. No more princess gowns or servant’s dresses, now she wore men’s trousers tucked into knee-high leather boots, rich browns and greens replacing the golds and blues, easier to move around the forest unnoticed. She had always been determined, always been a grin-and-bear-it type of girl, but now as he watched her heal and hunt to help care for those displaced by a war her husband had started, he wondered where she found the strength.

Bae himself had changed as well, some for the better, and some he didn’t like to look at. He no longer wore his woolen shepherds cloak - exchanged for a leather long coat years ago - the scratchy fabrics of his youth replaced with thick black leather pants, polished steel buttons and buckles, and loose, light linen shirts that made movement easier. Now, staring at himself without his shirt he noticed that his always somewhat stocky physique had taken on a new, battle-toned look, his firm chest and arms decorated with scars. The curls of his younger days had been cropped close at his temples where he was starting to show grey, longer at the top where he still enjoyed running his fingers through it when he was emotional. Never a fan of the straight razor, his boyhood scruff had grown into a goatee and mustache. 

They looked like the villains, didn’t they?

There were other changes too, ones Bae didn’t want to acknowledge. Like the fact that his storm cloud eyes now had streaks of lightning in them - not metaphorically, either. If he looked closely enough he could see little golden lines snaking through the iris of his eye, the same way dark black ones crept through his father’s. He noticed too that when he smiled, and he still did his best to smile often, his canines were sharper than he remembered them being. Not to mention the leather gloves he wore on the battlefield, to hide the fact that his nail beds were a dusty grey, the beginnings of the black ones his father had. 

"So all this time worrying about whether we're the bad guys or not, is that before or after you bed a man known as The Dark One?" Bae asked, trying his best to laugh off the nerves creeping up in his gut. 

"Definitely before. I'm too tired after," she laughed with that same saucy grin that had always brought him comfort. "But I'm serious, Bae, does it never even cross your mind?"

“Don’t be silly, Belle,” he said in his most calming voice. If he couldn't settle his nerves, he could at least try to settle hers. “We’re the same people we’ve always been. The Charmings are the villains. How can we be the bad guys when we’re fighting for freedom and love?”

“They think that’s what they’re doing, too. And I mean they’re doing a better job of looking it, aren’t they? Do you hear what people call you, Bae? The Black Knight! They whisper it behind your back, but it’s still there. The Charmings most trusted general is called The Savior. You have to admit, if you had to pick one of those names out for a bad guy…”

She trailed off, looking at him imploringly.

Yes, he had heard that and it irked him. He was the one doing the saving, and yet it was the Charmings who once again told their beautiful lies, sold them like luxuries to their people, and the idiots bought it up. It was easy to call yourself The Savoir. Who cared what people called him? After years of working towards his goal, he would do what he knew was right in his heart, despite the superficial misgivings Belle might be having.

“And they march under the guise of wanting love and peace for their people, too,” He conceded, “Of course they’re going to paint themselves out to be the heroes, but that doesn’t make us the bad guys. It just makes us more honest, is all. Anyway, we should get some rest before tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Your father is still up spinning. I think he’s nervous for you, and old habits do die hard. You know I can’t sleep over the noise of that stupid machine, do you mind if I stay here tonight?”

“Of course not,” he said as they fell backwards onto his bed, a snap of his fingers creating the illusion of a clear night sky above them on the ceiling, the soft songs from the tavern whispering like wind. He might be too tired for big spells, but he would always have the energy to make his friend smile. “Sure you want to, though? I think my snoring might be worse than his spinning wheel.”

She laughed, curling into his side as they gazed at the illusion above them.

“Do you ever think we should run? Now that we can?”

He looked at her concerned. She wasn’t thinking of leaving his father, was she?

“I mean, we’ve seen what this life of magic and war does to people, Bae. Your father - I love him - but I wish he’d give it up. It’s hard, watching The Dark One twist and pull at the edges of a good man. And Regina. She’s lost half her life to war. She wouldn’t even have a family if the Charmings hadn’t bribed her to leave them alone. And it twisted her too, in different ways. Do you ever think we should run, the four of us - you, me, your father, and Henry - and try to start anew, somewhere else? Do you ever think that maybe we should stop fighting?”

“I can’t stop fighting until I have gotten what I started for,” he whispered, his eyes drifting closed.

“You have half!” she said with renewed enthusiasm, pounding on his chest to wake him back up. “You have Henry! Isn’t that enough?”

He shook his head sadly at her. She had found her freedom. She couldn’t even remember anymore what it was like to be that scared princess, being told what to do, controlled like a puppet. Lied to and manipulated because her happiness didn’t matter. 

“It won’t be enough until Emma is free,” he said, hugging Belle tight to calm her down, “Not until Emma knows what they’ve done. Not until she is able to make her own choices.”

Belle nodded, settling against him with a soft sob. “Just be careful, Bae. Take care that when Emma finally does get her choice… just make sure that you’re still a man worth choosing.”

*

The room, which had previously been full of chatter, fell silent as Bae entered, the heavy doors slamming shut again behind him. His neck was still sore from favoring his injured shoulder in his sleep last night, his head still hurting from the magic that had piled up inside it, begging to be used, needing to be spent. He was not in a very good mood for this, but it was important all the same. Anyway, it was rare to see them all gathered here like this.

He looked around the room of the scoundrels and cads assembled before him, each staring back patiently at him. A colorful collection of characters, men and women that he had fought hard to know. Fought hard to earn their trust.

This was his army.

These were his allies.

His eyes scanned the table one last time, going over the list in his head.

The dastardly prince of thieves, the greasy one-handed pirate, the cruel and evil queen, the fire-breathing dragon, the beauty who married the beast, and the demi-demon Bae called dad. 

And they were all looking at him to lead them.

For the first time, he felt doubt settle into his stomach as Belle’s words from last night returned to him. _Do you ever wonder if we’re the bad guys?_

But they were in this now, and the only way out of the fire was through it.

So Bae leaned forward, resting his hands on the table in front of him as he met their gazes with unmatched confidence. Because if there was one thing he had learned, after a decade of chasing his dream, was that there was no room for second-guesses.

“Okay,” he announced, “Here’s the plan…”


	18. The Black Knight

The Black Knight, Regina’s most trusted general - a strong case could be made he was her _only_ trusted general -, stood atop the grassy hill looking down on lands he hadn’t seen since he was a boy. To his right stood a man who refused to wear the soldier’s leathers of Regina’s army, a green hood pulled up over his head, a bow in his hand and a quiver of Dreamshade dipped arrows on his back. To the general’s left was a woman who very much enjoyed wearing soldier’s leathers, her piercing blue eyes glaring angrily at the army beneath them. Her arms were outstretched as purple magic, so powerful it was almost palpable, radiated out of her.

He stepped forward, projecting his voice for every man, and more importantly, every boy, in his enemy’s army to hear, frozen, held by the sorceress, a captive audience. 

“This is not your war!” he began.

There was an anxious shuffling from the men behind him - his army that had grown from a band of a merry fifty to somewhere in the hundreds in only the last year - as the words they knew by heart brought uncomfortable reminders of their own desertion. Because The Black Knight hadn’t raised an army, he had stolen one.

He continued, “This is the war of Kings and Queens, of men bigger than yourselves, fighting for things you haven’t been trusted to know about. Many of you are shepherds and blacksmiths. Many of you never dreamed you would be called upon to fight for your king and your county, your sons standing beside you if you’re lucky - buried six feet under if you aren’t - as you stare facing an army you think you have no way of beating. Let me tell you, in that regard, you are correct!”

He stepped forward as the man to his left notched his bow, sighting targets in the frozen crowd of soldiers beneath them. Maleficent couldn’t hold them forever, but she could hold the hoard long enough for this speech. She hadn’t liked it at first, a waste of her time and talents she had said, but it had proven quite profitable for all of them. 

“You do not stand to gain anything if the Charmings win today, but you stand to lose a lot if I do. And I will win. By now my reputation precedes me, and so you know, I will win.”

He could see eyes shifting in the crowd, Maleficent's hold starting to strain. 

“The Charmings didn’t offer you a choice, but I will,” The Black Knight continued. “You don’t have to fight me today. It is not a coward’s way out to admit when you are defeated. It is brave to take your children and leave with your life. It is noble to stop a death from happening, even if that death is your own. For those of you who wish to live, I offer you refuge in Sherwood on my land. Abandon king and country, they never gave you much anyway, and join me and mine. The Charmings spill your blood as if your only use to them is fertilizer for their land - land they are losing by the day. I respect your trades; I respect your choices. Come join me, not as soldiers, but as carpenters, and healers, and free men. We will need you when we rebuild after this war. Because we are not fighting for land, and for honor, and for secrets like your masters. We are fighting for freedom, for survival, and for justice. Join us now, and you shall not be harmed. You shall not be judged. Your choice is respected here, my brothers. But join us now - for once the battle begins, you will have missed your chance.”

And he reached out with his magic, tendrils of it twirling together with Maleficent’s - her mist of paralyzing purple with his coils of mobilizing marigold. The act of spell-casting together was an intimate one that made them both squirm as their magics worked together to hold the men who wanted to stay and to release the ones who didn’t. They watched as a few soldiers near the front scurried away from their brothers, scrambling up the hill where The Black Knight met them with a nod of his head, and then they were off, running behind him through his ranks. The men would direct them to Sherwood - now teeming with refugees from The Charmings' war - to be sorted and assigned a role in the war efforts that played to their strengths.

The Black Knight had stolen many soldiers in this way - but no man became a soldier under his watch unless they wanted to.

As both his and the dragon’s magic began to fade, their enemies stirring in a restless clanging of weapons and armor, The Black Knight turned back to his companion in green and whispered, “Is that enough of a choice for you?”

“Good enough for me,” the man said, notching an arrow and letting it fly, drawing first blood as the army in midnight black leathers and silver armor screamed down from the hill to meet the army in chestnut brown leathers and golden armor waiting eagerly at the edge of the forest beneath them. A forest where, as a boy, Bae had climbed many an oak tree. 

As his men rushed around him, pushing forward where he could not, Bae watched the chaos below, Maleficent grinning hungrily with sharp teeth.

“Is it my turn?” she asked, as men wailed and died around them. “Can I go now, little knight?”

Bae shook his head, “Wait until we have them in the woods.”

She sighed, looking back out at the bloodshed as Bae turned away, casting his eyes over the land they had already won. 

Bae could feel as the boundaries shifted, as his men gained land, the way one could feel their stomach drop during a greet fall. It was a lurching, tugging feeling in his bones, both exciting and terrifying. He could count the time till reaching his goal in days now, instead of years. Like a wolf chasing the moon, he wasn’t entirely sure what he would do once he got there. 

“Now?” the woman growled impatiently as Bae turned to see his men cross the river, leaving behind a trail of bodies and heartbreak as they pushed the Charmings’ army across the little brook on the edge of the trees.

He shook his head. “Patience, if you go now you will scorch our men as well.”

She glared back, “Men are men, mortal. I do not understand.” 

He didn’t dignify her with an answer, instead he stepped forward, walking down the hill in the wake of his army, stepping over fallen soldiers too gone for his magic, and stopping to bend over the ones he could save - in either color of armor - a quick touch of his hand and their wounds began to knit. He walked on, leaving them disoriented, to figure out for themselves what their next choice would be. Most returned to him.

The Charmings’ army whispered that The Black Knight could raise the dead. It was a great way to explain why sons and brothers that had grown up on Charming land - died defending that same land - now stood in his ranks. But dead was dead, and even Bae couldn’t create such miracles. No, his miracles were much more mundane: forgiveness and a choice. That’s all it took to sway most men. 

“Fall back!” He heard Robin command as Bae’s boots touched the bank of the little stream, hundreds of his men turning to rush away from the woods the enemy army had just retreated into. They figured they had the advantage, hidden in familiar territory, ready to surprise his troops among the trees.

They hadn’t heard about his dragon.

“Now,” Bae said, as Maleficent smiled with glee, slipping out of her leather long coat and raising her arms, a whirlwind of magic so sickeningly rotten that anyone standing near enough began to gag. Bae tugged at the black scarf he wore under his helmet, over the openings for his mouth and nose, to keep things like dust and blood off his face. 

The woman standing next to him began to morph, growing in size and in power as her neck began to elongate, shoulder blades twisting and unfurling into thick-skinned black wings that stretched twenty feet across when fully unfurled.

The beast screeched, taking off into the air as it’s barbed tail trailed behind it, opening its throat to pour hellfire onto the woods. His men cheered as it circled and swooped, smoke rising quickly from the cluster of trees, as it’s claws ripped at the canopy, tossing aside chunks of green vegetation to pick at the humans scurrying below it, trying to find cover from the now blazing inferno. 

And once again Bae’s stomach lurched as the boundary jumped forward. 

He nodded to Robin, signaling for him to hold on this side of the river.

“This is your second chance,” The Black Knight called, his voice carrying into the woods on the wind, “Any who wish to leave with their lives, I offer respite from this war. For those of you who choose to stay in the woods, know that you are choosing death.”

They waited patiently, a few men running out of the trees and throwing down swords as they reached his army. He watched his soldiers welcome them like long-lost brothers. For some of them, that sentiment might be literal. 

There was a thud as Maleficent landed, a beautiful blonde licking at blood-soaked fingertips with lips that looked blistered to Bae. 

It was his turn. 

Robin had led the charge.

Mal had cleared the forest.

Now it was his turn.

The Charmings spread a lot of rumors about The Black Knight. They whispered he was a sorcerer so great that he hypnotized his men to follow him. A necromancer so evil he raised their own dead against them. A demon so dark of magic that he could only be killed by the purest of souls.

Desperate men would say desperate things.

But there was one rumor about The Black Knight that ran true. 

He left no survivors.

Bae stepped into the burning forest, fires flicking around him as smoke began to fill the air, trapped under the tree’s boughs to conceal the few left of the Charmings’ army still willing to oppose him. He breathed deeply through his scarf, feeling out with his magic to count the men waiting for him behind trees and through smoke. 

Eight. And one wounded. He would come back for the wounded man later - that man hadn’t made his choice, he had just been unable to leave. So eight, gathered close together on the far side of the forest.

He unsheathed his sword, the sound of steel scraping against leather as loud as his breath in the silent woods, advancing forward to the troop of cowering soldiers, each clutching their weapons in front of them as they looked around through the haze - wondering why the fighting and the dragon fire had stopped. 

He saw their eyes widen as he stepped from the fog, his sword still lowered at his side.

“Attack!” he heard their officer command, as two rushed forward with their swords raised.

Quickly, Bae brought his sword up in front of him, parrying the first blow, before turning his hips ever so slightly to deflect the next. It took just a flick of his wrist, keeping the blade as level as possible, to push back the steel they had raised against him, clash after clash as he forced them backwards, smoke twisting at their feet to conceal the rocks and roots that were far more deadly to them then the fires raging around them. 

He held his hand out to the man on his right, throwing him backwards with a sickening crunch as he brought his blade once again the press against the soldier on his left. The soldier held, hoping to stop his advance by leaning his weight into the blade. Bae shook his head sadly, sliding his sword down as the man toppled forward and then bringing the blade back up again just as quickly into his stomach.

He watched the eyes of the remaining soldiers grow wide, their number diminished by two, as he continued his steady walk toward them, waiting for the inevitable. How many more would try to fight him before their instincts to run kicked in? 

“Hold steady!” the officer commanded, his right hand on his sword, his left raised in a fist by his ear as a command. 

Three more rushed forward in a line, easy to defend against, Bae parried a blade by his ear, turning his hips away from the center to face the man on the left, forcing him backwards, watching as the man lost his footing over a root. Without wasting time, Bae drove his sword downward, a quick jab to the throat, before pulling his sword free and spinning to stop the blow of the other two behind him. He raised his fist in imitation of the officer’s gesture, collapsing his fingers tightly as he watched one of the men who had attacked him from behind begin to gasp for air, fingers clawing at his own neck as he choked. It would be the kinder of the two deaths. 

Bae passed forward at the other soldier, who stumbled, confused by his companion’s new predicament, barely able to bring his sword up in time to deflect Bae’s blade away from his chest.

Another clash, this time a nick on the man’s free shoulder as Bae angled his blade downward, slicing through the man’s leathers and drawing blood. Reinvigorated by his injury, with fear in his eyes, the soldier pressed forward as The Black Knight glided back, their blades meeting as Bae slid his down, the soft hissing of steel against steel, until their hands were practically pressed together at the cross-guards. Bae wanted to warn his opponent, the same way that he corrected Henry, that it was unwise to hold your thumb above the cross-guard, but that lesson would have been short-lived anyway. With a shove of Bae’s superior strength, both soldier and knight watched as the other man’s sword went flying out of his hand. Without waiting for the man to comprehend just how terrible this was for him, Bae brought his sword up, ending this enemy as quickly as he could.

He turned back to face the officer and two men still cowering in wide-eyed shock, slowly backing to the edge of the woods. 

Turn and run, Bae thought, I dare you. Maybe he’d give them a little help.

He reached out his arm, tugging at the metal in their hands with magic, and like a magnet the swords clattered free of the masters, landing at Bae’s feet. All three sets of eyes fell on the weapons in front of him, rising slowly from the swords at his boots to the one dripping blood in his hand. 

One of the men rushed forward while the other two ran backward and Bae shook his head that of all the men he would have to chase down in a coward’s retreat, the officer would be one of them. 

Quickly he reached his hand out, freezing the advancing man and pushing him to the side, slashing his blade across the man’s gut as Bae picked up speed. He might be able to heal the man later for his courage, but in the meantime this would prevent him from following the group. Boots pounding against the dry and cracking dirt, Bae ran through the smokey forest after the two men trying to escape.

The other soldier was slower, possibly younger, though Bae tried not to think about that, and so Bae caught him first, barely having to break his stride as he pressed his sword into the man’s back and pulled it free just as fast.

And then there was one.

They stumbled out into the clear air on the other side of the woods, green pastures and blue skies a shock to the senses after the cloudy darkness of the burning woods and both came to a stop to catch their breath.

“I’ve heard of you,” the officer taunted, tossing his helmet aside with a sneer. “I know all about you.”

“Do you?” Bae asked, removing his own helmet and tugging his scarf away from his face, the heat of the woods and his exertion causing sweat to drip down his brow as he took careful, menacing steps towards the officer.

“I know you’re cursed,” the man taunted, “I know the love of the Charmings repels you from their lands. I know you can’t cross this line!”

And the man was right, kind of. Bae stopped, a few feet away from the taunting officer, his invisible wall situated uncomfortably between them. He couldn’t cross that line. He let his sword fall to his feet, smiling softly at the coward who had run and hidden behind a curse, thinking he was brave for his childish taunts. 

“You’re wrong, about the Charmings’ love,” Bae said with a shrug, letting the clean air fill his lungs as his breath returned to him. “It’s their hatred that keeps me here.”

“And they will always hate dark, evil scum like yourself,” The soldier spit. “I know I’m right. Only a fool would try to fight a demon they didn’t understand.”

“You are right, I can’t cross that line,” Bae conceded. “But you can.”

And with a tug of his hand, the man was pulled forward by Bae’s magic, The Black Knight gripping him by the lapel of his uniform and smiling down sharp-toothed and unrelenting at the officer. 

“You’re a monster,” the soldier spat as Bae’s fingers thrust through the man's chest, wrapping around his heart and squeezing. With his dying breath, the soldier mumbled, “The Savior will stop you.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Bae whispered back as he dropped the man to the ground. 

*

“Don’t take a single coin from a man in here tonight,” Bae told the barkeep, offering him a sack of gold coins that made the man’s eyes sparkle as he practically began to drool. “Trust me, it's enough to cover everything.”

The barkeep nodded as Bae turned back to look out at the little tavern filled with his soldiers in various stages of uniform, some just in undershirts and pants, the others still wearing their armor over their polished leather like badges of honor. Some still wore the tattered remains of the Charmings’ colors, fresh recruits who were already healed up enough to leave the healer’s tent and celebrate their victory. 

Bae had spent many days in this tavern as a boy - when he had only been responsible for a couple dozen sheep and not a couple hundred men. The music of his village played loudly as his soldiers danced, some playing cards with the locals, a few flirting mercilessly with daughters of men who were too far away with the rest of The Charmings’ army to warn them of a soldiers’ intentions. Then again, his soldiers knew the kind of man they fought under, and they knew well enough that Bae was willing to enforce an absent father’s will, were they to venture too far with a local maid. 

The Charmings might try to paint them as a band of vile low-lives, but they could, and would, hold themselves to higher standards than that.

“General Cassidy,” one of the boys called, “join us for cards?”

“You’ll regret that, private,” he laughed, pulling up a chair and smiling as they dealt. As he looked at his cards, listening to the cacophony of his men celebrating in a village that had not exactly been opposed to their liberation, he knew he had the winning hand.

Well, he actually had a flush of hearts in his hand - not quite a royal one; though why should it be when Bae never had been? Still, it was a pretty good hand.

However, in war, he definitely had the winning hand. It had taken his breath away to step back into the little village - looking at the Charmings’ castle looming over the horizon like a finish line. He was home, for the first time in a decade, and he prayed that one day, after the war was over and the land made safe again, that he would be able to bring Henry here.

He wanted to show his son all of it. From the river where Bae and Emma had swam, to the town square where Henry’s grandparents had been married. He wanted to buy Henry a sticky, sweet cake from the bakery Bae had loved as a boy. Let him pet the sheep descended from the ones that his father had tended. 

He wanted to introduce his son to the boy’s mother.

His army would make their final push tomorrow, and then Bae had to justify to the gods and the woman he loved what he had done to get back to her. And he didn’t regret a single bit of it. Sure, he didn’t like all of it. But with Emma only miles away, he didn’t regret it. 

“Another round on the General,” one of the barmaids said, setting drinks down around the table as his men whispered words of thanks, pulling more coins and objects of value out of their pockets as another round of cards was dealt and Bae left his winnings in the center of the table - unwilling to take it from his men when he knew it meant more to them. 

“You’re lucky to have such a generous man in charge,” one of the local girls, who had way more courage than Bae had had at her age, flirted. She rested her hand on his shoulder, toying with the sheer black scarf still hanging around his neck and smelling like smoke from the fires today.

“It’s the least I could do,” Bae laughed as he shrugged her off and turned back to his men, “After all, if we’re going to die tomorrow, let’s do it with love in our hearts and beer on our breath!”

“To the General!” one man cheered as the rest of the bar lifted their glasses.

“To the brave men who fight alongside me!” Bae corrected with a nod of his head, lifting his glass as well.

“And to our sons,” Robin added from his spot by the dartboards, “Who, if we’re a lucky batch, will hopefully out live us!”

“Or unlucky,” Bae added, “If we die tomorrow!”

The bar filled again with laughter as the men downed their drinks, another round following closely behind them. The music swelled as pipes were lit and young couples and strangers alike drifted to the dance floor of the packed bar. 

It was a night filled with laughter and merriment, because if it was going to be their last, it was one they wanted to enjoy.

Until suddenly a cold chill fell over the bar, all eyes turning, Bae’s last of all, to the open doorway where a small band of soldiers stood in chestnut and gold. 

“Where is The Black Knight?” one of them asked, all eyes shifting to Bae and his men’s hands moved to the weapons at their hips.

Bae stood, an incorrigible grin on his face like always, as he laughed, “Come to join my army, boys?”

“We’ve come to drink in _our_ tavern,” the soldier at the front of the crew spat back. “Our men are weary as well and The Savior asks permission to share the bar, that until this morning, was on Charming land.”

Bae shot his eyes back to the open doorway, looking out at the crowd of Charming soldiers gathered around it.

“Why doesn’t your Savior come ask me himself?”

“The Savior doesn’t lower themself to acknowledge men like you, Black Knight.”

Bae chuckled, “Those are some awfully judgmental words from the ‘good guy’. You tell The Savior that men like me are men of their word, unlike those we fight against. Bloodshed is for the battlefield, tonight we can drink like brothers, for when this war is over, we will be.”

The soldier shook his head in distaste, turning back to convey the message to the men waiting outside.

“Oh, and tell The Savior, and the Charmings, and anyone who will listen, that come tomorrow, I’ll be rescuing the princess and rebuilding _my_ land. This might have been their bar this morning, but it will never be again.”

*

The Savior was smaller than Bae had imagined, but he could appreciate that, having never been very tall himself. A military man of little mirth, he ordered his drink and took it outside, leaving his men to cautiously commune with Bae’s own army on their own.

Bae had never understood that, men who didn’t fraternize with their brothers, but it was the way both his father and Regina led their armies, so he supposed it was not all that uncommon. 

Still, as the night wore on and the bar warmed up with the heat off too many soldiers and liquor running through his blood, he could see the appeal of being outside. He pulled his scarf back over his mouth, lowering his helmet onto his head as he pushed his way through the crowds to the open door, bracing against the cold winds to take a leak. 

The Savior sat with his untouched drink on a bench near the main road, looking out at the fields in front of them, still in the full uniform of battle. Understandably, it was cold and the helmet, scarf, and gloves probably made the evening air bearable. But Bae didn’t need magic to sense the love and longing radiating from the smaller General as he surveyed the fields he had lost to Bae. The Savior had no way of knowing that Bae was just taking back what was his, that Bae had missed and longed for these lands for a decade now, and so the fact that The Black Knight could set foot on these lands was probably a great personal defeat to The Savoir.

Bae should have headed back inside, but for the first time he felt like he belonged out here, with this lonely leader, instead of inside with his men.

He sat on the bench, The Savior barley flinching at his company, and adjusted the scarf around his mouth as it grew moist with the warmth of his breath and the cloud of cold air as he breathed out. 

“I used to swim in that river as a boy,” he said, his voice husky with emotion and muffled by his scarf as he pointed out to the stream babbling along the burned fields. 

They sat quietly for another moment. 

“Did you get my message?” he asked, trying to look for a reaction out of the corner of his eye, but the visor on his helmet made it hard. “I’m getting pretty good at these intimidating General speeches these days, what did you think?”

There was a rustle of leather as The Savior rose, walking past him down the road back to the soldiers' camps, a hand wrapped in soft tanned gloves pressed against his as he passed. 

Bae looked down confused at the folded piece of parchment paper he was left holding, untucking the edges carefully to reveal the words scrawled inside:

_Not every princess wants to be rescued, Dark One._


	19. The Final Battle

The morning of what Bae had started calling their ‘final battle’ in his head, he busied himself around the camp, checking in with his men as they ate breakfast around the campfire, making sure his wounded were recovering with a little push from his magic, checking with the weapon’s master to make sure their swords and armor were in the finest condition it could be under the constant strain.

He kept his hopes high and his smile wide as he walked the camp, knowing that after today, no matter what, everything would be different.

“I miss you, papa,” Henry said, his face pressed close to the glass mirror, Belle’s hand on the little prince’s shoulder as Bae’s father stood behind them, nervously wringing his hands.

“I miss you too, little man,” Bae laughed. “But I’ll be seeing you again real soon.”

He reached out to brush his son’s hair from his forehead, fingers bouncing off the glass a sad reminder that they were physically miles upon miles apart. 

“We love you Bae,” Belle said, kissing the top of Henry’s head and smiling encouragingly at him. “Be safe today.”

Bae nodded, looking up to his father who knew they needed no words. The Dark One had faith in Bae, he knew he had raised a more than capable man, and he knew that Bae would never leave his own boy fatherless.

But he also knew Bae was no coward. He knew his son had tunnel vision. He knew the man that still called him papa without fear of reproach was one who would rather die for what he believed in instead of bend for his own self preservation.

And so Rumple worried.

The mirror faded back to just a reflection, Bae looking away quickly enough. It probably wasn’t a good sign when you couldn’t hold the gaze of your own reflection, but he didn’t have the strength to face himself and the tears welling in his eyes. 

It had been over ten years, and here he was, so close to victory he could taste it.

And he wasn’t sure, after all this, if Emma would still want him. 

But he had to find out.

He joined his men among their ranks, marching alongside them as Robin and Maleficent stood on either side, their own silent worries going through their minds. He knew Robin was thinking of Roland. He wondered what the sorceress had on her mind. 

As for him, Bae only had one thing on his mind: a host of memories of two children so hopelessly in love that the rest of the world didn’t matter. Of her golden hair and her blue eyes and that smile that he could still remember vividly even after years apart. The thought of her hand in his, her bare feet racing over the pastures, he infectious laugh more magical to him than any of the real magic he’d had a chance to taste in the last decade.

And today, he would see her again, if it was the very last thing he did.

*

The grounds of the royal palace were hellish, a mass of men fighting so closely that you could hardly dodge one sword blow without impaling yourself on the sword of the man behind you. 

Bae pushed forward, using the sharp edge of his blade and his full weight to lean into the oncoming men around him, Robin’s arrows raining down from atop Maleficent, as she circled above with outstretched claws, knocking archers from atop the perches on the castle walls.

With a grunt of frustration he pushed the man in front of him off his sword, turning back to face the crowd behind him, rushing at another man who had one of Bae’s soldiers pinned between the castle moat and certain death. Bae dashed forward, his blade clanging down on the shield of the attacker, drawing his attention long enough for the young soldier to retrieve his fallen blade and join Bae in his efforts. Bae lunged forward as the enemy soldier passed backward, bringing himself flat against the grip of Bae’s ally's sword, the gore covered blade protruding from his stomach. Bae nodded approval, turning to face four more of the Charmings’ men as they approached. 

He brought his blade up to defend against the first strike, his free hand reaching out with a burst of magic, but his aim was off center and it only knocked two of the advancing soldiers backward as he had to spin quickly to deflect the next blow. He tried his best to watch his footing, making sure to keep his two attackers in his line of sight, but both were bigger men and more determined to land forceful blows, using both their hands to wrap around the grip of their weapons as they pressed forward and slashed downward, the clash of metal deafening in Bae’s ears. He raised his blade in front of his face, allowing him easier movement in his defense as he shuffled backward, noticing the two men he had knocked off their feet regaining their bearings and their blades as they rose to join the fray. 

There was a hissing noise, right by his ear, and then suddenly one of the men in front of him fell back with a howl of pain, clutching at the arrow shaft sticking out of his eye. Bae turned to see Robin, offering him a small wink from atop the dragon, before fitting another arrow into his bow.

The remaining attacker had bent low, using Bae as a shield between himself and another arrow, and though his own sword still protruded deadly and dangerous as he advanced on Bae from his crouch, he wasn’t at the best angle for slashing and slicing. Bae hesitated, trying to think, before raising his sword, pommel facing the ground and brought it down quickly on the soldier’s helmet. Because swords were sharp, but they were also heavy, and for Bae’s purposes, an unconscious man was as good as a dead one.

He looked up in time to see the other half of the original four racing toward him, and focused his magic into the tips of his fingers as he stretched out his hand and lifted one off the ground, dangling in the air for a moment as he clutched at his throat, Bae tossed him casually to the side, groaning from the effort. And the pain. 

The pain?

Bae looked down to see the other soldier had made it to him, the tip of his blade sticking a solid three inches out the back of Bae’s leather, blood already begging to pool around the edges as the soldier in browns and golds let his eyes widen in disbelief. Had he been so lucky, to slay The Black Knight?

“That hurt,” Bae growled, pooling his magic in his gut as the tissue began to reform, the fresh blood drying as his skin reclosed over the wound, his eyes lifting to the soldier in front of him who stood dumbfounded with bloody blade still in hand. “Still, you’ve done better than most.”

Using the man’s surprise to his advantage, Bae reached out, fingers pressing through leather and armor with ease as he pulled out the throbbing heart of the soldier who had wounded him and crushed it in his fist. 

As he watched the dust crumble from between his fingers, arrows still whizzing around him as his men fought on, he felt a terrifying push - not of the physical realm, but one of magic forcing him backwards.

He looked around for any reason his boundary might be shifting now when his men were still so clearly gaining, his eyes settling on the General who stood watching Bae from a few feet away, Blade raised in a noble challenge. 

He smiled under his scarf, it had been a long time since he had begun a duel with a bow, and so he raised his own blade in front of him, a subtle nod, daring The Savior to advance. The enemy General rushed forward, the gold of their armor shining as they met Bae in battle, the full force of their weight leaning into the blade and knocking Bae back a couple inches. He regained his footing, raising his sword to defend as another blow narrowly missed his shoulder. Bae might have had the advantage in height and weight, but The Savior was fast and nimble, feigning to the left only to meet Bae on the right when he tried to sidestep the thrust. 

Bae moved backward across the grounds, the armies fighting on either side of him completely forgotten as he raised his blade again and again in defense, doing his best to hold his own without magic against a worthy opponent. He wasn’t sure if it was out of respect, or sheer inability to think of his spells fast enough as he channeled his energy into anticipating The Savior’s next move, but he had to admit it had been a long time since he had been met with a decent challenge like this one.

He stopped his retreat on the edge of the field, most of the fighting now happening in front of him, and grinned. 

“You’ve forced me back,” he said in good nature as he brought his blade against the other general’s and shoved forward, pushing the smaller soldier off their center of gravity and forcing them to take their own step back to avoid toppling. “Not very smart, because you’ve given me room to move.”

Confident now that he was far enough away from his invisible boundary, he thrust his blade forward, nicking the side of The Savior’s leathers as the smaller soldier twisted away. Surprisingly, Bae hadn’t drawn blood, The Savior was too quick. Not yet, at least.

He stepped forward, bringing his blade down in a two-handed sweep, trying to take another step inward to use his weight and height to his advantage as his opponent brought their blade up to parry his.

But where their swords clashed, Bae felt resistance, finding that he couldn’t step forward. And not the resistance of steel against iron wills, but the invisible wall of his curse. Pushing him backward. They were standing on the line.

How was that possible? His men were still ahead of them, winning, the boundary had been much closer to the castle moments before.

Confused, he retreated again, hoping The Savior would follow him back to safety where they could continue their fight. But again, their swords met, and that invisible wall pushed him backward, forcing retreat when he was almost to his victory. 

And that could only mean one thing. 

He parried the general’s blow to his head, snapping his fingers and appearing a few feet further into the field behind them. He was seceding Regina’s land, he knew. The invisible barrier seeming to follow his retreat. Or rather, The Savior’s advance.

“Coward!” The Savior yelled, bringing their blade down through the empty air where he had been standing. And Bae wanted to weep at the feminine lilt to the insult.

Bae had been a coward. He was not one anymore.

Before The Savior could raise their sword against him again, he dropped his own to his feet, bringing his hands up in a placating gesture of surrender.

“Pick up your sword and fight,” The Savior growled, anger and gravel filling the air where Bae had once only heard music. “I’m not done with you.”

He shook his head as The Savior brought the tip of their sword - of _her_ sword - to his throat, drawing a pinprick of blood as she brought her voice to a whisper.

“You think you’re a hero? You think you’re here to rescue me? From what? Others have tried where you stand, to carry me off as a prize for their efforts. Only one man ever truly tried to rescue me from this life. And unfortunately for you, it is in his memory that I fight. And you are fighting for those who have taken _everything_ from me. The Dark One took my True Love. The Queen took my son. And now you are here to rescue _me_ ? In _their_ name? I don’t think so, Black Knight,” she hissed, picking up his sword and shoving it against his chest with venom, waiting for him to take it.

And still Bae stared because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“They say you offer men a choice before every battle, so I will offer you one as well. You can die like the Queen’s General fighting a valiant effort against me, or you can die like a cowardly minion of The Dark One standing unarmed and hoping for pity where there is none. But either way, you will die. This is the last time I will offer, pick up your sword and fight me!”

Slowly he brought his hands to his helmet, tugging it off and tossing it to the side as he pulled his scarf away from his face, lowering himself to his knees in front of her.

“If it’s all the same to you, princess, I would rather die as a shepherd.”

“Bae?” she whispered, her own sword clattering to the ground next to him.


	20. The Reluctant King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Thank you guys for sticking with me from beginning to end, I know it was a bit of a wild ride there. I just wanted to say I appreciate your comments and kudos, because this has been one heck of a crazy project. So thank you for reading. And I guess that just leaves one last thing for me to do, so let me take a page out of Baelfire's book and finish what I've started.

After all was said and done, there was a lot of cleaning up to do. The understatement of the century. In the days, weeks, months, and years to follow there was a world to be rebuilt, villains to reform, sins to atone for, and a life to plan. But Bae didn’t really care as long as he could do all of that with Emma.

**_Days_ **

Bae held her hair back as she trembled with being sick, trying his best to comfort her with soft noises and sweet caresses as she wiped her mouth and glared up at him, those impatient eyes a comfort to him even though they held so much anger.

“It was like that for me at first, too,” he assured her, pulling her back to her feet, “You get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it,” she said, her eyes wide with horror, “I don’t want to do that ever again.”

“But it saves so much time and effort,” he said, his brow wrinkled in confusion.

“I don’t care,” she insisted. “No more.”

“Yeah, alright,” he relented, tucking her hair behind her ear and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. “No more magic teleporting.”

“No more magic,” she insisted firmly. 

That was a taller order. But he would try. 

He took her hand in his, pulling her inside the castle doorway and down the little hall to the meeting room. 

She still seemed nervous at the affection, no longer the wild and brazen girl of his youth, he tried not to take it personally that she seemed so unsure of him. They had a decade of growth that they would have to relearn in each other, but he was confident that in time they would return to their previous intimacy, stronger than ever after what they had been through. And in the meantime, he would be patient. He had waited over a decade to be with her again, what was another couple months of restraint if it kept them close?

He did, however, worry that her reservations had nothing to do with nerves, nothing to do with growing to know him, and everything to do with the man he had become. Emma had said nothing to lead him to believe that she was disgusted by his choices, not since finding out he was The Black Knight and all of the lies she had been forced to swallow over the last decade, but the concern was still there, deep in his heart, because whether she could forgive him or not, he wasn’t sure if he could.

“This isn’t what I thought The Dark One’s castle would look like,” she mumbled as he pulled her along, taking in the rich red carpets and bright sunlight streaming through opened curtains to illuminate the polished wooden furniture.

“I did most of this myself,” Bae said with a grin as they reached the large wooden doors at the end of the hall and he paused to gather his nerves, “You didn’t think I’d spent the last ten years living in a cave, did you?”

“Well, no…” she trailed off, failing to hide the anxiety in her voice.

“It’s going to be fine.”

“I’ve never done this before.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said with an encouraging smile. “I’ll represent your interests, you just have to say yay or nay to my decisions, okay?”

“They all hate me.”

He shrugged. He didn’t really have an answer to that one. Instead he pushed open the door, eyes taking in the group of people gathered around his father’s war table, a map stretched out between them. They had saved one empty seat, at the head of the table, and even though Bae knew it was for him, he insisted on helping Emma into the chair as she folded her hands primly on the table, eyes wide in obvious terror at the ne'er-do-wells all staring her down. 

“All right,” Bae said, rubbing his hands together, “Let’s get these negotiations underway! What does everybody want?”

And they all spoke at once.

In the end Hook and Maleficent were the easiest to appease - they didn’t want land, or even a title, just money and lots of it.

Regina contributed a significant portion of silver for Mal and Bae agreed they’d keep the ports open to Hook’s fleet despite the illegitimacy of his smuggling business. That was the easiest part, and the two had left without bothering to hear the rest of the peace talks, long before Belle entered the room with a tray of lunch for the remaining five.

“She’s beautiful,” Belle whispered in Bae’s ear as she passed, squeezing his arm encouragingly.

He smiled proudly. Emma was beautiful. She was also smart, and funny, and forgiving, and brave. She was so many things, and Bae was lucky to have them all within reach again. 

“What can we do for you, Robin?” Bae asked, taking Hook’s now vacant chair next to Emma as Belle finished serving tea and slid into the empty chair between his father and Regina. “A title for Roland? Some money for your men?”

“They’re your men now, Bae,” Robin corrected, “And I shudder to think of the silly things my boy would do with a noble’s title.”

“Then can we assume your help was free of charge?” Regina purred across the table and Bae liked that her sinister smile wasn’t directed at him for once. Robin might have had a couple decades of age on Bae, but he was also scruffy and a good dad, which appeared to be all Regina was really looking for. 

“No,” Robin insisted, turning his eyes to the map in the table. “When the new boundaries are drawn, I want to make sure Sherwood is firmly on The Dark One’s land. I don’t trust a Charming.”

“Emma isn’t a Charming anymore,” Bae corrected in a hurry, but he saw her eyes divert quickly to her lap, fidgeting with the fabric of her dress. They hadn’t talked about it, of course, but by sheer virtue that he’d spent the last few days at the castle, one had to figure it was her land now. Whatever she may be. Because she had spent the last decade becoming The Peasants' Princess, which turned out to be fortunate for Bae and his allies because the Charmings army was mostly peasants. 

Robin raised an eyebrow and picked up the chalk from the table, drawing a distinct line on the map. “I trust your word, Bae, but I have no experience with hers. I want the boundary drawn here.”

Regina reached out, taking the chalk from his hand and smudging the lines to give herself quite a lot more land. “Let’s be clear, The Dark One can have Sherwood, but that is not where we are drawing the boundaries.”

Rumple snapped his fingers, the blurry chalk lines disappearing from the map as Emma jumped back from the sudden appearance of new lines, dividing the entire map into three even chunks. “Fair is fair, afterall,” he crooned.

“No,” Regina shook her head, “Fair is not fair, old man. I put in far more resources and risked far more important things, I want the bigger piece.”

“Listen, I don’t really care who gets what,” Robin insisted, “But I’m not leaving till I have a promise that Sherwood will not be on Charming land. My men are looking to erect a village around the woods, and we don’t need Charming soldiers or Charming taxes interfering with that.”

“Emma will be different,” Bae assured Robin, “But it’s her family land and I’m not willing to let you take it away because you can’t trust me.”

“I think it’s not you he doesn’t trust,” Regina said with a sideways glance to the princess.

“You’re as bad as Roland,” Robin argued, “You hardly know the girl, Bae, I just want my assurances that things will be different this time.”

“They will,” Bae said through gritted teeth.

Emma bit her lip nervously, reaching out for the chalk and drawing a bubble around Sherwood on the map with an arrow pointing to The Dark One’s lands. “In case I’m not different enough,” she said with a smile.

Robin grinned back, picking up his hood and quiver from the back of his chair, “I like this one, Bae. Not enough to fight a six-year war for her, but I can see why you did.”

As the doors slammed closed behind him, the remaining occupants looked nervously around the room. 

“Listen,” Bae offered cordially, “We’re willing to give you more, Regina, but on the agreement that this feud ends here. Like it or not, we’re family, and the lands are all going back to one person anyway. Can we agree on that. Draw the boundary where you like, but leave it to Henry.”

Emma stiffened under his grip and suddenly Bae realized why she was so nervous. He had been selfish to assume it was about him, about her new role as a leader, about the magic of The Dark One’s castle. 

“Only if you make the same promise,” Regina said through gritted teeth. “No second sons usurping what Henry has a right to on your side of the border as well.”

Second sons? They were getting a bit ahead of themselves here, weren’t they?

“Of course!” Emma agreed before Bae even had a chance to open his mouth.

“So it’s agreed! We have a deal! Should we shake on it?” His father crooned from across the table, Belle smiling lovingly at his enthusiasm.

“No,” Regina said, her eyes locking on Bae. “Baelfire and I have one last thing to discuss. Privately.”

“Belle,” Bae asked as gently as possible, “Would you mind showing Emma the library? I’ll meet you two there in a moment.”

“Of course!” his mother and best friend offered, reaching out to take Emma’s hand with the same enthusiasm Bae did, completely ignoring the younger woman’s discomfort as she began to chat away enthusiastically. His father shot him a skeptical look across the table, but slowly stood to follow the two women out of the room.

“What do you want, Regina?” Bae sighed as soon as the doors closed. 

“I want to discuss Henry.”

“Emma should be here for that, then,” Bae said, standing to call her back, but Regina’s long nails dug into his wrist, pulling him back into his chair. “She’s his mother.”

“ _ I _ am his mother,” Regina hissed. “Be lucky I’m willing to concede you are his father. But the war is done, there is no longer a concern for his safety, and Henry still has quite a long time before he is ready to make his own decisions. And so I want to discuss with you what he will be doing in the meantime.”

That was actually kind of thoughtful of her. Too thoughtful...

“My father still owns his time,” Bae realized quickly. “At the end of the day, the decision is mine. And he will be coming with Emma and I.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow across the table, “What happened to that good man you used to be, Baelfire? So eager to rip a boy away from his mother, I see there is still some evil in you yet, despite what you might be telling that nitwit of a princess on your arm.”

He bit his lip in annoyance, as he took in the sincere desperation she was trying to hide in her eyes. He thought of the woman who had offered him half a kingdom in exchange for saving her son. The woman who had avoided a war she was capable of winning to keep her son with her. The woman who, when war got hard, had sent that same son away to safety because his life was more important than her own wants.

“We’ll split his time,” Bae decided. “He’ll spend half the year with you, and the other half with Emma and myself. But you have to promise me: no magic. I can’t control the choices you make for yourself, but my son will not start down that road. The little he knows now is all he will ever know. And if I find out for one second you’re defaulting on that promise, I’ll evoke my father’s deal and you’ll never see him again.”

“So you’re giving it up?” she cooed, “Good luck with that. Have the headaches started yet? That itch in your blood that you just can’t scratch? You think you can quit so far down this path?”

“I can try,” he said, standing to leave the room, “And I can prevent my son from ever starting.”

Emma was waiting nervously in the library while Belle hummed a tune and pulled down books from the shelf to add to the already growing stack of tomes surrounding the princess.

“Hey!” she said, her eyes lighting up as she saw him step into the room.

“Hey,” he said back, sweeping her into a hug, kissing her forehead as she melted against him. This was all a lot for her, he knew, in such a short amount of time. And it was about to get harder. “Are you ready to meet our son?”

**_Weeks_ **

The idea of sitting on a throne was one that made Bae very nervous. He had been many things in his thirty years on this earth, but a king was never one of them. The thought made him anxious in a way he couldn’t describe. Then again, the nausea might just be from the withdrawal, he was struggling with that too - raw magic clinging to his skin like static as he did his best to ignore it’s constant call. For Emma. 

Fortunately, there were only two thrones on the dais of the Charming throne room, and Regina had insisted that one was for her - still acting as regent until Emma’s upcoming coronation. Emma had bristled at this decision, offering Bae the empty seat since it was rightfully his kingdom, having won it in both love and war, but he had declined, instead choosing to stand behind her with his hand resting comfortably on her shoulder. A mirror of his father, perched on the arm of Regina’s chair - insistent that he be a part of all this mess. Not because The Dark One actually had opinions on the topic, but because he never did pass up a chance to be involved in drama. 

Emma had refused to discuss this with Bae the night before, as they lay awake with a nervous energy they were intent to burn off the only way they knew how, even though he had tried his hardest to coax her feelings out of her. He had wanted a chance to be open with her, a chance to work through something so incredibly painful, but she had misinterpreted his attempt at intimacy as concern for her ability to lead.

“It hurts, Bae, but it won’t affect my ability to do what is right for my people.”

And that had been the end of it, cut off by more kisses that built in passion as the night wore on. 

He tried now to cover his yawn, he hadn’t gotten much sleep at all last night, as the previous King and Queen were brought before them. They were read a list of their crimes, of which there were more than Bae had even been aware of, both with heads bowed to the four figures on the dais.

Bae had thought when he saw the Charmings again he would feel the same amount of fear and anger that he had felt as a boy, huddled into the corner of the throne room and forgotten. But he didn’t, he only sort of felt pity at the two fallen monarchs. 

“-And so,” Regina continued, “The penalty we have all agreed upon, for the crimes against your family and your people, is death.”

“Wait!” Emma interjected, tears filling her eyes, “Don’t you want to hear what they have to say?”

“Not really,” Regina said, shooting Bae an annoyed look. It was clear Regain thought that he should be on the throne next to her just as much as Emma did.

“They deserve a chance to defend themselves to their people!” Emma argued, tears now freely flowing down her cheeks and more than anything Bae wanted to wipe them all away and fix this. But there were no magical solutions that meant anything, trying to fix what had been done, to cheat fate out of its final retribution was pointless because in the end - magic or fate… or maybe just coincidence - things would work out the way they were going to regardless.

So all he could do was offer his support.

“Let them speak,” he said to Regina, his voice level.

“Fine,” she conceded with a roll of her eyes, turning her gaze back to the Charmings, “What do you have to say?”

“I’ve nothing to say to a usurper and a monster,” the Queen hissed, falling quite again quickly. 

But the King was finally looking at Bae.

“I do,” he said, standing and stepping toward the dais, the guards at the foot of the stairs tensing, but Bae waved them off with his hand. “Ten years ago a shepherd boy and his father came before my wife and I asking for mercy, and I am ashamed to say we turned him away. I am ashamed to say that I couldn’t even look the father of my grandson in the eye. Snow and I have built a kingdom on questionable choices, but everything we’ve done we did to protect our daughter. As a father, I assume you have to understand. Yes, we’ve done a lot of terrible things in the name of love, but so, I’m afraid, have you.”

Bae stepped forward, feeling Emma’s hand tug at his wrist to restrain him, but he pulled free to meet the king, the rest of the room disappearing from his focus as the king continued.

“You’re a brave man, General Cassidy. Not every shepherd who loves a princess is as strong. Were it not for King James’ death, were it not for my father’s need to put an unacknowledged son on the throne to replace the boy he’d lost, I would have never gotten my life with my princess. For years I’ve lived behind a wall of lies, my wife calling me by my brother’s name in public, my low status hidden behind careful stories crafted to keep nosy nobles away, too afraid to defend the one man brought before me that I knew - more than anything - I should have. You were banished outside these walls, but I’ve been trapped within them, and I’m not sure which is worse.”

Bae had an idea of which he thought would be worse, but he let the King continue.

“So I’m standing here, acknowledging you now, as the father of the rightful heir to my daughter’s kingdom. No matter what the court decides today, I’m proud of you, General Cassidy. Proud to call you a son. And I ask, from one frightened shepherd to another, from one undeserving king to another, that you show mercy today.”

“That was very moving,” Regina muttered in distaste. “But since I didn’t really plan on giving you a chance to speak, what you have said does not change my verdict. Death.”

“I’m so sorry, father,” Emma sobbed from the throne, “But it’s the only fair decision for what’s been done.”

“No,” Bae whispered, the rest of the room falling silent. He spoke with the strength of steel and the finality of magic, disguising his pettiness for pity. “The only fair punishment is banishment.”

And he hoped the Charmings would enjoy theirs just as much as he had enjoyed his. 

**_Months_ **

Bae had insisted they were not getting married in the castle chapel, it wouldn't be true to who they were. And Emma, who had grown into her stately duties a little too nicely for Bae’s liking, had reminded him that it would be considered a royal snub to not invite the other neighboring monarchs and nobles who had offered her aide in her war against… well, him. 

So the town square of his childhood village was out, there was simply no way to fit all the necessary guests, because Bae had quite the list of invites of his own, and so they had spent a while arguing over different locations. The best part about having a bastard son was there was no clock ticking away to pressure them into a speedy decision - the word was already out - people knew Emma would not be wearing white. 

It was Henry in the end who had suggested the field where Bae and Emma had first met as children trying to run away from their lives. And then where they had met again as adults, looking to get back to the very same lives they thought they would never miss. It was Henry who persuaded them that there was no better place for them to start their lives together than at the foot of the old oak tree that they used to climb with the very same river they used to swim in babbling behind them. Henry loved hearing his parent’s stories - ten years of only hearing them from Bae - he was now eager to pry them all from Emma’s perspective, often asking embarrassing questions that made both his parents blush.

And so though it was less than traditional, they sent out the invitations to nobles and monarchs, demons and dragons, alike. They were aware a few of the other kings and queens might look down on them, but this wasn’t really about anyone but Bae and Emma.

It was about the girl who had grown up in the shadow of True Love and the boy who had tried his hardest to bring light to The Dark One. About the man who had fought his way back to her by any means necessary and the woman who had defended a nation of people in his memory. It was about them, and their love story, through all it’s ups and downs. Everyone else be damned.

Now, standing at the base of the tree in his soldier’s leathers, because Bae had also shuddered at the thought of the formal attire typical of a king, he couldn’t believe how beautiful the land - that had always been in the background of his life - had become. 

They had of course done their best to make it a wedding worthy of a queen, spreading white rose petals across the aisle made of silk cloth, comfortable chairs for the guests who all seemed just a little confused, candles already burning out across the field for when the sun began to set in a few hours and the party would continue on into the night.

But the sparkling river and the twisted boughs of the old oak tree had made it beautiful to Bae. The sunset on the horizon and the stars peaking out above them had been enough for Emma.

And as she walked down the aisle, Henry on her arm - he had seemed confused by that request at first, still getting to know his princess mom - Bae’s breath caught in his throat because this was all he had ever wanted.

She hadn’t wanted a dress covered in lace and gems, though many had offered to make her one. She hadn’t even wanted to wear her crown. Instead she wore a simple dress, like the ones more fitting a shepherd’s wife - the soft golden yellow of her family's crest - and her hair braided with the same wildflowers they had picked in their younger days. She wore a white fur stole draped across her shoulders to protect against the evening chill and a cautious smile on her lips as she approached. 

He loved that on this day they were neither princess and shepherd, nor The Black Knight and The Savior, but something in between. For the first time in a long time, they were Bae and Emma.

And so Bae did his best to pay attention to the priest as he fumbled through the ceremony, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Until everyone was staring at him. And oh, shit, he was supposed to say something here.

“Emma,” he smiled, squeezing her hands in his, “When we were kids we used to talk about these grand adventures we wanted to go on. We dreamed of being able to run away from our lives and sail under the stars or fly up in the clouds. We talked of magic and excitement and poured all our hopes and dreams into those imaginary games where we tried to forget for a moment the lives we were living. Well, I’ve ridden dragons and I’ve sailed with pirates. I’ve fought in war and mastered magic. I’ve lived every childhood dream we had, and at the end of the day, all I ever really wanted was to get back here, to this field, with you. So as we start our new life together, I vow to stay by your side - seriously, you probably couldn’t get me away from your side if you tried - and to dream of only you and the life we are building together. Because nothing would bring me more happiness than being your husband.”

She smiled, sniffling back tears bravely in front of the crowd - who cares, he was crying now - as she looked into his eyes and began her vows.

“Baelfire, you once told me a long time ago, that you would love me until long after you were dead. I thought you were being silly then, but no man has ever kept more true to his promise. I lost you at possibly the scariest time in my life, and I mourned you for years, only to have you return to me with an even greater conviction that our love was meant to be. You loved me so much, and were so confident in our bond, that you were willing to bow before me unarmed in battle - trusting that I would never hurt you - or maybe just too stupid to realize that I might. Either way, it’s my turn to make you the same vow. I have loved you from the day we met, and I will continue to love you long after I die. Because True Love doesn’t end when two people are parted - we know that well enough by now - it merely changes its shape for a while. Oh! And I can’t wait to be your wife!”

And so they slipped the rings onto their fingers, simple golden bands - his wrapped around a ring of darkened steel and hers wrapped around a ring of white ceramic - to start their lives as husband and wife.

They stood overlooking the field, watching as Merry Men and the village locals shared drinks around the bonfire, Belle and his father dancing with wild abandon while Henry pulled Regina along in an attempt to get her to show some cheer, Bae’s arm wrapped around Emma to shield her from the evening cold.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He asked with a grin.

“Bae, it’s  _ our _ party,” she protested. “People would notice if we left.”

“You’ve always hated parties,” he said with a shrug. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

“I have always hated parties, haven’t I?” she laughed, letting him lead her away from the celebration, further out into the woods where she had first suggested that he court her. He held her tightly to his chest as they shared their first dance under the green canopy of their childhood, waltzing like children with no music, just like the way they always had.

**_Years_ **

Bae should have known, after discovering Henry’s talent for waking him up from a deep sleep, where the little boy got that skill from. It certainly wasn’t him.

“Bae,” she whined, “Get up!”

He groaned, pulling one of the pillows over his head, which was throbbing aggressively with the sunlight from the curtains she had just opened. He wondered if a day would ever come when he didn’t start his morning with a pounding headache, when he would be able to be around the light prickling of raw magic without feeling the overwhelming compulsion to use it, when his skin wouldn’t itch every time he completed a task by hand that he used to do with magic. 

“Not now, Em, my head hurts,” he moaned, rolling over and pulling the blankets up over his head.

“Well that’s your own damn fault for getting yourself addicted to magic like that,” she huffed, “And if you think I feel bad for you…”

She trailed off as he peeked out at her from under the covers, a smug smile on his face because he knew she did feel bad. She didn’t like to show it, but she did feel bad in the way that she fussed over his head and stomach aches and did her best to hold his attention when he was in one of those moods. 

“Get up,” she continued, pulling the blankets off the bed and leaving him exposed to the cold air. “We’re going to be late to the Arendelle coronation if you don’t get up and get dressed.”

“I don’t want to go to that,” he whined, reaching for the blankets she had left on the floor as she returned to going through her closet, wrapping them back around his shoulders as he watched her try and decide which dress was best for the occasion. “Can’t I just stay here and sleep-”

She turned around, shooting him an annoyed glare. “It is our duty as King and Queen-”

“But I don’t want to be a King,” he said flopping back onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling. 

She chuckled, setting down the dress she had been messing with and coming back over to where he lay pouting on the bed. He tried not to laugh, he knew she was self-conscious, as she climbed onto his lap, hands tracing the scars on his shoulders as she leaned over him in that way that had never failed to get his attention before. And he loved her, would never be more attracted to another woman in his life, but he had to admit she had lost her usual graceful sexiness somewhere around her third trimester. Honestly, she’d held onto it a lot longer than he’d expected. Still, she tried, and so he played along.

“You want to be my husband, don’t you?” she teased with a kiss below his ear.

“Mhm,” he moaned, closing his eyes as her hands traveled down his chest.

“And you want to be the father of my child don’t you?”

“Mhm,” he moaned again, this time his voice deeper as her hands found places that were quite… persuasive.

“Then too bad,” she said, pulling her hands away to smack him in the back of the head, “Because being King is part of that package. Get up.”

He caught her just as she managed to get herself off the bed - really it was cute watching her struggle, though he felt bed for thinking it because he knew how uncomfortable she was at this stage of her pregnancy - pulling her back down on top of him as his hands pulled at the fabric of her nightgown. 

“You’re going to make us late,” she laughed as he rolled her onto her back, pressing his knee between hers as he leaned down to kiss at her rounded stomach. “Seriously, Bae, we don’t have time for this.”

He answered her with a smirk, moving his other knee to join the first one and sliding his hands below her hips to pull her to him. And she didn’t put up much more of a fight then that, her eyes drifting closed with a soft moan as he made a very persuasive point for being late.

And they were definitely going to be late, neither one making any move to leave their comfortable marriage bed after, as he held her against his chest, nuzzling her neck while she rested her hands on her stomach and let out a soft sigh.

“You don’t think Henry is going to be jealous, do you?” she asked for the millionth time, and Bae had to try hard to sound serious when he gave her the same answer he always did.

“I think if he was, he would have said something by now. In fact, I think he’s kind of excited.”

Which was true. Though he was currently with Regina for the Fall and Winter, he was looking forward to returning in the Spring to his new sibling - already a list of things he wanted to teach the baby, his meticulous bullet points growing longer by the day. He wrote to Bae often, and Emma as well, and never once had he mentioned being jealous. 

“I guess,” she said, turning to kiss him before looking sadly into her eyes. “I just missed so much with him. I don’t want him to think I’m trying to start over. I don’t want him to think we’re-”

“Hey,” Bae said, brushing a calming hand against her cheek, “I missed a lot too. It’s okay.”

“Yeah, but you were there when he was learning to read and learning to sword fight. You got to tuck him in at night and read him stories. I missed all that.”

“And I missed all this,” he whispered, setting his hands on her stomach. “The first time he kicked, his first cry, getting to see him as he entered this world. We both missed things, Em, but he got three parents who love him out of the deal, so I don’t think  _ he’s _ complaining.”

“If you say so,” she sighed, finally moving to get dressed as he sat up, watching the curve of her spine and the way she tossed her blonde curls over her shoulder, and he wished they never had to be anywhere but right here for the rest of forever. “But really, we’re going to be late. So get up.”

“We wouldn’t be late if-”

“No!” she insisted, letting her dress settle around her frame before turning to him with a glare, “No magic!”

“I’m just saying-”

“No! It made me sick on a good day, at eight months pregnant Bae? I’d be puking my guts out all morning. You promised those days were behind you.”

“You know, I know you hate it, and you know I’d never use it without your permission, but magic is what brought us back together.”

“No it’s not,” she laughed, pressing a kiss to his forehead as he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Fate was what brought us back together.”


End file.
